y TT 167 
.B7 P7 
1915a 

' Copy 1 



A Study of the Boston Mechanic 
Arts High School 

Being a Report to the Boston School Committee 



BY 

C. A. PROSSER 

Secretary, National Society for the Promotion 
Industrial Education 



Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements 
for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 
in the Faculty of Philosophy, 
Columbia University 



published by 

efcarlj*ra <!IalL?g*, (Mumbta IntnrrHttg 
NEW YORK CITY 

1915 



A Study of the Boston Mechanic 
Arts High School 

Being a Report to the Boston School Committee 



C. A. PROSSER 

Secretary, National Society for the Promotion of 
Industrial Education 



Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements 
for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 
in the Faculty of Philosophy, 
Columbia University 



published by 

ufcarfcra Olribg*, driumbta llnttKraitg 
NEW YORK CITY 

1915 



5- ^ooLjn 






Copyright, 1915, by C. A. Prosser 
AUO 5 fg|f 



CONTENTS 

Foreword 5 

Findings in Brief 8 

FINDINGS 

I. What is the purpose op the school as defined by the school 

committee? 15 

ii. how far does the aim of the school agree with that of the 

school committee? 19 

iii. how far is the school reaching boys who desire preparation 

for industrial careers? 23 

iv. is the school giving the kind of training which the aim of 

the school committee requires? 28 

v. how far does the school succeed in placing its pupils in 
the kind of industrial employment intended by the aim 
of the school committee? 47 

VI. Can the M. A. H. S. serve as a preparatory school for the 

THE ENGINEERING COLLEGE AND AT THE SAME TIME REALIZE THE 

AIM OF THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE? 48 

VII. IS THE PER CAPITA COST OF THE SCHOOL SUCH AS WILL REALIZE THE 

AIM OF THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE? 50 

VIII. Is THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SCHOOL SUCH AS TO PROMISE A 

REALIZATION OF THE AIM OF THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE? 54 

RECOMMENDATIONS 

1. As TO METHODS OF FINDING THE GROUP 59 

2. AS TO THE TRAINING TO BE GIVEN 61 

3. AS TO EMPLOYMENT AND VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 62 

4. AS TO EQUIPMENT 64 

5. As TO PART-TIME INSTRUCTION 65 

APPENDICES 

A. The Mechanic Arts High School as a preparatory school for 

the Technical College 69 

B. Suggestions concerning the course of study 73 

C. Suggestions concerning methods of instruction 81 

D. Suggestions as to immediate changes in the school 82 

E. Answers of the headmaster to the question aire within the 

STUDY 85 

F. Tables showing occupations of graduates of the Mechanic 

Arts High School 106 

3 



Contents 

G. Table giving comparison op occupations op graduates op the 

Mechanic Arts High School 108 

H. Suggestions as to devices in getting hold op pupils desiring 

TO BE TRAINED TO BE INDUSTRIAL CADETS 109 

I. Comparative per capita cost op maintenance op various 

Boston high schools and vocational schools Ill 

J. Table showing pupils' intention concerning college 112 

K. Position for which graduates op the Mechanic Arts High 

School op Boston should be properly fitted 112 

L. Questions submitted to the Headmaster op the Mechanic 

Arts High School and answered by him in Appendix E. . . . 118 



A STUDY OF THE BOSTON MECHANIC ARTS 
HIGH SCHOOL 



FOREWORD 

1. Reasons for the report. — This report presents the results of 
a study of the Mechanic Arts High School undertaken at the 
request of the Boston School Committee. Its aim has been to 
determine to what extent the school is effectively performing in 
the school system the purpose intended by the committee of 
preparing boys for advantageous entrance to industry on the 
business and directive side. With the wisdom of that purpose 
this report has nothing to do. 

Owing largely to the rapid development of industrial educa- 
tion in Massachusetts during the past few years and a changing 
conception of the purpose and place of manual training, the 
aim of the Mechanic Arts High School has of late frequently 
been called in question and several investigations have been 
made with a view to determining just what kind of service the 
school ought to render the city of Boston and how that service 
can best be performed. The first of these studies was made 
by Mr. Arthur L. Williston, director of Wentworth Institute, 
and the second by the business men's advisory committee for the 
school, consisting of Messrs. Fish, Alexander, Burton, Lindall, 
Green, Ziegler, Russell, and Kaven. The findings and recom- 
mendations of this present report are compared with those of 
the two previous studies. 

2. Scope of the report. — This report is concerned with these 
two questions: (1) How far is the school now effectively accom- 
plishing the purpose of the school committee, and (2) what 
changes, if any, should be made in the work of the school in order 
that it may better accomplish this purpose. 

3. Spirit of the report. — It should be understood at the out- 
set that this investigation has been undertaken in no hostile 



6 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

spirit and that this report is not intended as an indictment of 
the headmaster and the faculty of the school, or a criticism in 
general of their efficiency. 

The Mechanic Arts High School was organized in 1892 as a 
manual training high school. An early report of the committee 
in charge of the school indicates that they believed it should be 
a fundamental purpose of the institution to serve as a high school 
offering systematic instruction in the mechanic arts and draw- 
ing, and that preparation for the engineering college was also 
a legitimate part of its work. This policy has been consistently 
followed since the founding of the school and until recent years 
has had the approval of the sub-committee in charge of it, as 
well as that of the executive officers of the school committee 
responsible for its supervision. 

In agreement with this policy, the headmaster and his as- 
sociates have built up a school which has stood in the front 
rank of similar institutions throughout the country. Few 
schools can show among their teachers a better esprit de corps 
or, on the part of their pupils, a finer spirit of manliness and 
studious attention to work. Few schools, indeed, possess in- 
structors of greater teaching ability or more sympathetic under- 
standing of adolescent boys. Abundant credit should be given 
those charged with the administration of the school for the wis- 
dom, the skill, the large executive ability, and the incessant 
labor necessary to develop such an institution. 

In recent years, however, the School Committee has adopted 
a change of policy for this school. It is with the administration 
and development of the institution in the light of this new 
policy that this report is primarily concerned. 

4. Method of the report. — In making this study, the Boston 
School Committee, as the final authority, was asked to state the 
purpose it wished the school to accomplish. The effort has 
been made to test the school by this aim. To a very large 
extent, the study has relied upon the headmaster for information. 
This information he has always been very ready to furnish and 
the findings given herein are largely based on data obtained 
from this source and included in the Appendix of this report. 
(See Appendix E.) The thanks of the writer are due the head- 
master for his kindness and courtesy in giving his assistance in 
this manner. The data from the school office were supplemented 



Foreword 7 

by a number of visits to the school and conferences with the 
members of the faculty. The records of the Boston School 
Committee, the reports of the Mechanic Arts High School and 
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and answers to 
printed questions by students both of the English High School 
and the Mechanic Arts High School, have also been drawn upon 
for information. 

Grateful acknowledgment is here made of the exceedingly 
valuable information and helpful suggestions contributed by a 
number of persons, particularly by Mr. Arthur Williston, direc- 
tor of Wentworth Institute, and for the active and able assistance 
of Mr. W. A. O'Leary, director of Evening Training Classes 
for Teachers at Pratt Institute, in the preparation of this re- 
port. 



FINDINGS IN BRIEF 

1. The aim of the Boston School Committee for the school is, as 
has been stated, the preparation of boys for advantageous en- 
trance into industry on the business and directive side. The 
Committee has said it is not the function of the school to pre- 
pare for the engineering college. 1 

2. The aim of the school itself seems to be at variance with that 
of the School Committee. This is indicated by the published 
reports of the school setting forth the aim of the course of study, 
the course of study itself, the statements of the headmaster, 
the text-books used, the type of examination given, and the 
character of the instruction. Instead of aiming to prepare boys 
for advantageous entrance into industry on completing the high 
school course, there is every evidence that the controlling aim 
of the school is to give boys general education and to fit them 
to enter the engineering college. 

3. Some of the students of the school wish to be prepared for 
industrial careers of the kind contemplated by the school com- 
mittee. Evidence of this is found in the fact that less than 
15 per cent go to higher institutions, and that a fair percentage 
appear to go into some form of industrial work. 

4. No attempt is made to select boys who wish to be trained in 
accordance with the stated aim of the school committee. There is 
no organized method of reaching such boys or bringing the 
school to their attention and no attempt is made either at or 
before the time of entrance to determine a pupil's purpose in 
selecting the school or his fitness to take the special training it 
is expected to offer. 

5. The course of study is not the right kind to give the training 
desired by the school committee. It is too abstract and too far 
removed from the practical experiences the pupil will meet 



1 Throughout this discussion the term engineering college will be used to mean a 
school of college grade, like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or the Wor- 
cester Polytechnic Institute, offering instruction in engineering branches. The term 
wili be used as synonymous with the expressions: the technical school or college, 
the higher scientific school, and the higher technical school. 

8 



Findings in Brief 9 

when he goes into industry. The academic part of the course 
is essentially the same as that of any general high school. 

6. The kind of instruction is not that required to prepare boys 
for industry. — The shops are largely organized on an exercise 
basis and the instruction throughout the school, principally 
owing to the lack of correlation between shop and classroom, 
is not sufficiently practical. 

7. The classes are much too large for efficient work. This is 
especially true in the shops. To a certain extent large classes 
appear to have been a conscious policy of the school in the ef- 
fort to keep down the cost of instruction. 

8. The majority of the instructors of the school are well qualified 
to give the kind of instruction required by the aim of the school 
committee. Many of them have a large asset of practical 
experience which the school is not now utilizing to best advan- 
tage. A few are not equipped to train boys for industrial pur- 
suits and probably cannot acquire the necessary qualifications. 

9. The shops and equipment of the school are in the main ad- 
mirably adapted to training boys in accordance with the aim of 
the committee. The shops, however, are too crowded and the 
shop equipment is not sufficiently varied. Some of the equip- 
ment necessary for efficient instruction in printing and the 
application of power in industry is lacking. 

10. The school is not necessary as a preparatory school for the 
engineering college. The English High School is preparing nearly 
as many pupils for the engineering college and appears to be 
doing it at least as well and probably better than the Mechanic 
Arts High School. 

11. The school fails to meet the needs of the 85 per cent of its 
pupils who do not go to the engineering college, because it serves 
primarily the interests of the 15 per cent of its pupils who do. 

12. The headmaster is evidently not in agreement with the 
School Committee regarding the purpose of the school. 

Summary of Recommendations 

This report makes the recommendations that: 

(1) No changes of any kind be put into effect before Septem- 
ber, 1914. 

(2) All classes now in school be allowed to graduate on the 
present basis. 



10 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School. 

(3) All changes be made gradually beginning with the class 
of 1918. 

(4) The school gradually abandon all attempt to fit for the 
engineering college and confine its instruction to preparing boys 
for industry in accordance with the aim of the school committee 
given herein. 

(5) The course of study be immediately reorganized for the 
first year, according to the suggestion given in Appendix D and 
be put into effect in September, 1914. 

(6) The whole course be gradually reconstructed according 
to the suggestions given herein. 

(7) Such subjects as foreign languages, general science, and 
general mathematics, which belong to the field of general edu- 
cation or of college preparation, be eliminated from the course. 

(8) Suitable agencies be established for finding and selecting 
boys who wish to be trained for industrial careers and who have 
the right kind of interest and ability. 

(9) The shops be organized on a commercial basis. 

(10) Instruction in the shop, the classroom, and the labora- 
tories be more closely correlated with each other. 

(11) The customary use of text-books be largely discarded 
and the materials for instruction be gathered from such sources 
as the school shops, outside plants, and trade literature. Ex- 
perience goes to show that instruction, when given by highly 
competent teachers, can be worked out much more pedagogically 
without the conventional use of the usual text-book which should 
serve as reference rather than as lesson plan. 

(12) Visitation to industrial plants and lectures by business 
men and experts from outside plants be included in the instruc- 
tion. 

(13) All instructors be required to have some industrial 
experience as a qualification for service and those who do not 
have such contact or cannot acquire it be gradually transferred 
to other high schools and replaced by those who do possess such 
qualification. 

(14) Varied equipment, as described later, be added to the 
school. 

(15) The school day be lengthened to 7 hours for the class 
of 1918, of which not less than six shall be given to actual in- 
struction. 



Findings in Brief 



11 



(16) The number of pupils in shop classes be reduced to not 
more than 28 to each teacher. 

(17) Shop work be required of every pupil throughout the 
course. 2 

(18) A placement bureau, in charge of a vocational counselor, 
be established. 

(19) The course be so arranged that boys may elect drafting 
during the last year, or may specialize in some one industrial field. 

(20) Boys who discover after entering the school that they 
wish to prepare for the engineering college be transferred to some 
other high school, and it be the duty of a special vocational 
guidance committee to advise concerning such transfers and 
see that they are made to best advantage. 

(21) Part-time courses of instruction be established which 
will enable the school to place its students on actual industrial 
work, while taking training for a portion of their time in the 
classroom, and which will enable those who have gone to work 
to secure through the school the further preparation they need^ 

Points of Agreement with the Findings Regarding Ex- 
isting Conditions Described by Previous Reports 

The findings of this report agree with those of Mr. Arthur Wil- 
liston made in a previous report in every main condition, and 
especially in the following particulars: 

(1) No adequate system is maintained for selecting boys for 
admission to the school. 

(2) Preparation for the engineering college is the controlling 
aim of the instruction. 

(3) Mechanical branches taught do not furnish adequate 
mechanical training. 

(4) The small per cent of pupils who go on to higher institu- 
tions of learning can be cared for in other high schools. 

(5) The teaching of many subjects, such as physics and 
mathematics, is too academic. 

(6) Shop work is not sufficiently practical in character. 

(7) There is a lack of correlation between the work of shops 
and classrooms. 

(8) English is well taught. 

2 An exception should be noted in the case of the elective course in drafting in the 
6enior year. (See p. 32.) 



12 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

(9) History is not sufficiently industrial in character. 

(10) Classes are too large. 

(11) Shop instructors are required to teach too many periods. 

(12) Cost of instruction is abnormally low. 

(13) The English High School offers better preparation for 
the engineering college than does the Mechanic Arts High School. 

(14) The equipment is inadequate to train for industry in a 
practical way. 

Points of Agreement with the Recommendations for 
Changes Made by Previous Reports 

This report agrees with the reports of Mr. Williston and of the 
Business Men's Advisory Board in regard to the following recom- 
mendations. 

(1) Systematic plans should be put into effect for reaching 
the right group of pupils. 

(2) Only those qualified to profit by industrial training should 
be admitted to the school. 

(3) The school should give up all attempt to prepare for the 
engineering college. 

(4) The school should aim to prepare boys for industrial 
vocations. 

(5) All instruction in foreign languages should be omitted. 

(6) Work in pure mathematics should be reduced and instruc- 
tion both in science and mathematics should be specialized. 

(7) Shop work should be prescribed for everybody through- 
out the course. 

(8) There should be some latitude in the choice of course in 
the fourth year. 

(9) Classes should be reduced in size. 

(10) The school day should be lengthened. 

(11) A placement bureau should be established. 

(12) Records should be kept of the boys' experience and suc- 
cess in the industry after graduating from school. 

(13) More shop space should be provided. 

(14) The equipment of the shops and laboratories should be 
so far as possible such as would be found in the shops, tool 
rooms, and testing rooms of commercial plants. 

(15) Arrangements should be made for the transfer of misfit 
pupils from the Mechanic Arts High School to other schools. 



FINDINGS 



WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THE SCHOOL AS DEFINED 
BY THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE? 

1. Purpose of the school as stated by the Committee. — The 
School Committee, in instituting a change of policy, has officially 
stated the purpose of the school to be "the preparation of non- 
commissioned officers of industry." 1 

2. The term "non-commissioned officer" as just stated, is here 
used to mean a subordinate executive or assistant on the busi- 
ness and directive side of productive industry. He may, for 
example, be a detail designer or engineer's assistant in a factory 
or manufacturing plant, or the motive power department of a 
steam or electric railway; an assistant engineer for a power plant 
or office building; an inspector for a factory and steam boiler 
insurance company; a salesman for the sales department of 
factory and machine houses; a tester of apparatus; a sub-fore- 



1 "The Mechanic Arts High School is designed to prepare boys for industrial ef- 
ficiency. Training for industrial efficiency may be of at least three different kinds: 
(1) That which fits for productive skill as an advanced apprentice looking forward 
to journeymanship and leadership on the productive side of industry, such as is rep- 
resented by the training given in the Boston Independent Industrial School for Boys 
(Brimmer Building) and in other all-day schools, of the same type together with part- 
time and continuation schools, yet to be established; (2) that which, by the advanced 
instruction in technical colleges like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, fits 
for technical insight giving favorable entrance as a commissioned officer in business 
and industry, looking forward to leadership on its technical and business side; sec- 
ondary school preparation for such technical colleges is being given satisfactorily by 
other Boston high schools and according to previous decisions of the School Com- 
mittee, is not hereafter to be a part of the work or service of the Mechanic Arts High 
School; (3) that which aims to give through a school of secondary grade both the 
technical knowledge and the elementary experience in certain industrial processes 
which will make the pupil 'industry and business wise' as a preparation for favor- 
able entrance as a non-commissioned officer in industry looking to promotion and 
leadership on its business and directive side. 

"It is the belief of the School Committee that inasmuch as the first two of the 
different kinds of training for industrial efficiency are being given satisfactorily by 
other Boston institutions, the purpose of the Mechanic Arts High School should be 
to confer the third, and that the training of this character given by the Mechanic 
Arts High School should meet the same demand in industry which the High School 
of Commerce is attempting to meet by fitting boys to become non-commissioned officers, 
in business and commercial pursuits." — Statement of Boston School Committee in cor- 
respondence relating to this report. 

15 



16 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

man; an assistant manager or chief. These titles carry various 
meanings in different industries, but in general this type of em- 
ployment is filled by a subordinate executive rather than a highly 
technical expert. A very suggestive list of the many different 
kinds of positions to which the work of the school should lead 
is given in Appendix K. 

The non-commissioned officer should know the general pro- 
cesses, methods of production, materials, and machines of 
productive industry, as well as shop and business organization. 
He need not have the skill of hand of the trained workman or 
the special knowledge of the technical expert, but he should 
have an appreciative understanding of both good workmanship 
and technical knowledge. 

On graduating from the school the pupil would not, of course, 
be ready to assume immediately the leadership for which he 
had been preparing. While his training should enable him to 
make advantageous entrance into his future work he would still 
have to acquire the expert knowledge of business and industry 
and the judgment, essential to leadership, which comes only 
through experience. On entering business, therefore, he might 
well be termed a novitiate in industry who is looking forward 
to serve as a prospective officer or as a sub-engineer of industry. 

No amount of schooling or technical training however de- 
sirable and excellent can take the place of actual experience in 
industry itself. Both are necessary. The pupils in the school 
should be given the discipline of hard work as well as a knowl- 
edge of how to work. They should be made at the outset to 
understand that much straight hard work in subordinate posi- 
tions lies before them. The Mechanic Arts High School should 
give them a type of training which will fit them to go out into 
industry with enough power and practical usefulness to get a 
good start with the prospect always ahead of advancement in 
proportion to their ability and effort. 

For several years a few commercial high schools have been 
training the commercial cadet for business, leaving largely to 
the private business college the task of preparing the skilled 
workers in the ranks such as bookkeepers, stenographers, and 
typewriters. The Boston High School, of Commerce, for ex- 
ample, is definitely engaged in training boys for such advan- 
tageous entrance into commerce as shall enable them to fill 



School Committee's Statement of Purpose 17 

eventually subordinate executive positions at least in the dis- 
tributive as contrasted with the productive side of business. 
It is the understanding of this Report that the School Commit- 
tee desires the Mechanic Arts High School to serve in a similar 
way in the preparation for advantageous entrance into industry 
of industrial recruits, who shall eventually fill subordinate ex- 
ecutive positions at least on the productive side of industry. 

3. The statement of purpose quoted above is in accord with the 
policy adopted by the School Committee several years ago, with 
reference to the purpose and administration of its high schools. 
That policy was to maintain a number of high schools like the 
English High School, the Latin Schools, and the various dis- 
trict high schools, whose aim should be to give general prepar- 
ation for life, including preparation for higher institutions of 
learning, and to surround those schools with special schools like 
the Boys' Industrial School, the High School of Commerce, 
and the Girls' Trade School, whose aim should be to give to 
particular groups special preparation for specific kinds of service. 
This action of the School Committee took the Mechanic Arts 
High School out of the class of general high schools and made 
it a special school and gave it as definite an aim as that of any 
other special school. 

4. The difference between the Mechanic Arts High School and 
the Boston Industrial School for Boys. It may be well here, for 
the sake of clearness, even at the risk of prolonging the discus- 
sion, to point out the difference between the aim which the 
Boston School Committee in the foregoing correspondence has 
set up for the Mechanic Arts High School and that for the Boston 
Industrial School for Boys. 

The latter school is intended for boys who desire to be pre- 
pared to enter, as advanced apprentices looking toward journey- 
manship, such skilled trades as those of the machinist, carpenter, 
electrician, and printer. The Mechanic Arts High School is 
designed for the boy who expects to enter productive industry, 
not as an apprentice to a skilled trade, but, in a sense, as an 
apprentice in organization, management, or both. 

Since the completion of an elementary school course is not 
absolutely necessary to a fair degree of success in the trades, 
the Boston Industrial School for Boys does not require a common 
school diploma, its entrance requirement being the ability to 



18 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

do the work of the school successfully. Since the callings open 
to the graduates for which the Mechanic Arts High School pre- 
pares, are of a higher grade, only graduates of the common 
school are admitted. 

5. A special school has to meet certain conditions which a gen- 
eral school does not have to meet because it has been charged 
with a special instead of a general duty. It must secure a group 
who want the particular kind of instruction the school has been 
directed to confer; it must give its pupils a training which ob- 
viously prepares them to realize the aim established by the com- 
mittee; and the great majority of its graduates must show as a 
result of their training efficient service in the particular field the 
school is intended to serve. 

When the United States government established at Anna- 
polis an academy for the special purpose of training officers for 
the navy, it became the duty of those in charge of the institu- 
tion to accept for training only those persons who wished to 
become naval officers. Having secured such a group it was 
clearly the business of the naval academy to give the cadet the 
kind of training which obviously fitted him to become a naval 
officer. To justify its existence the academy at Annapolis must 
further show that the great majority of its graduates actually 
enter the navy and that they continue in the service as suc- 
cessful officers. 

6. Four tests of the school: The answer to the question "How 
far is the Mechanic Arts High School meeting the aim of the 
School Committee?" depends, therefore, upon what answers 
can be returned to the further questions: 

(a) Is the aim of the school in accord with that of the com- 
mittee? 

(b) Is the school reaching the group who wish to be trained 
for industrial careers in accordance with the aim of the School 
Committee? 

(c) Is it giving the right kind of training for this purpose? 

(d) Are the graduates of the school, on the whole, going into 
industry in the kinds of positions contemplated by the Com- 
mittee in their statement of aim? 



II 

HOW FAR DOES THE AIM OF THE SCHOOL AGREE 
WITH THAT OF THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE? 

1. The aim of those charged with the administration of the 
school is not in accord with that officially authorized by the 
School Committee. The published reports of the school, the 
statements of the headmaster, the course of study, the char- 
acter of the instruction, and the occupations of the graduates 
all show this to be true. 

2. The published reports of the school give its aim as general 
education rather than vocational training. The first report 
issued in 1897, four years after the school was opened, states, 
in effect, that it is not the controlling aim of the school to "give 
vocational preparation, but an all-round education. m 

3. An examination of the statement just quoted shows that the 
school never specifically aimed to prepare boys for productive in- 
dustry. It is there stated that the primary purpose is to secure 
an "all around development of the pupil" and that "the train- 
ing which it gives is as valuable to a boy who is to become a 
lawyer or a physician as to one who has to work at the bench 
or to superintend a manufacturing plant." It is also pointed 
out that "the work is not arranged with special reference to 
vocational ends" and implies that preparation for profitable 
employment is regarded as a by-product. The primary aim of 
the school, therefore, so far as it can be gathered from the 
printed reports, is not vocational training — as is intended by 
the School Committee — but general education. 

The revised copy of the report of 1897, issued in 1903 and 
still circulated from the school office, phrases the aim in essen- 
tially the same words. The course of study printed in 1897 was 
slightly modified in 1903. Except for the substitution of ele- 



1 "While the primary purpose of the school is to secure the harmonious develop- 
ment of all the powers of the pupil, without special reference to vocational ends, the 
fact is not overlooked that the manual dexterity and knowledge of mechanical prin- 
ciples acquired at school will be, for many boys, the immediate stepping stones to 
profitable employment." — School Document No. 2, 1897. 

19 



20 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

mentary science in the first year, for one-half the time, formerly 
given to drawing, there has, since that date, been no change in 
the printed course. 

During this period there have been pronounced developments 
in the fields of secondary technical and vocational education, 
not only in methods of instruction but also as to the aim and 
content of the courses of study. With this development there 
has also come a clear distinction between manual training and 
vocational education and a new understanding of the function 
of the manual training and the technical high schools. The 
fact that meanwhile the school has not materially changed 
either the aim or the course of study raises the question of how 
far it has adjusted itself to meet the changing educational thought 
of the times. 

If it be objected that the reports referred to above are out of 
date, it should be noted that they are still distributed from the 
school office to grammar school teachers and others and that they 
contain practically unchanged the course of study now in use, 
which is a large index of the aim. 

4. These reports give preparation for college as a large aim of 
the school. "The primary purpose of the course is to meet the 
needs of boys whose school life is to end with the high school, 
but it also provides excellent preparation for the higher scientific 
schools. The training in shop work and drawing enables pupils 
who enter such higher institutions as the Lawrence Scientific 
School of Harvard University, or the Massachusetts Institute 
of Technology, to anticipate equivalent work in those institu- 
tions, and thus gain valuable time for advance courses." 1 

5. The headmaster of the school admits that the school is to a 
certain extent a general high school offering cultural education as 
its dominant purpose, but he apparently believes that the aim 
and course of study as contained in the published reports just 
quoted should not be materially changed. 2 



1 School Document No. 2, 1897, page 1. 

2 In a series of questions submitted to him as a part of this study among others 
were the following: (1) Do you regard the Mechanic Arts High School as a general 
or vocational school? (2) If it is a general high school, how does its work differ from 
that of the usual high school? (3) If it is a vocational school, for what vocations 
or trades or occupations does it fit? 

The replies to these questions follow: 

"The curriculum of the Mechanic Arts High School includes many of the branches 
usually found in high schools, and they are taught in the same way except that de- 



Agreement of Aim of School and that of Committee 21 

6. The headmaster believes that the instruction of the school 
should prepare boys for the engineering college. It seems fair to 
infer from his answer to the question given below that he ad- 
vocates one course of study which at the end of four years will 
enable all pupils to pass successfully the entrance requirements 
of the engineering college. 1 Nowhere does he suggest differen- 
tiated courses of study with different aims, but rather that as 
"a fundamental principle" the institution " should be properly 
articulated with the schools below and above it" so that there 
might be " movement from it to higher institutions of the same 
type" — which he declares to be " fitting and logical." 

The headmaster also presents a defense of the policy of the 
school as a preparatory institution in the way in which it has 
been carried out in the past and attributes the falling off in 
attendance to the action of the School Committee in declaring 
a change of policy as regards the purpose of the school. 2 While 
it may not be fair to interpret these statements as fully repre. 



cidedly more emphasis is given to industrial history, and to the practical application 
of science and mathematics. The subjects peculiar to it are taught so as to give sub- 
stantial knowledge of the elementary facts and applications of the fundamental 
mechanic arts. This curriculum has proved singularly attractive and inspiring to 
many boys, and has given very valuable general culture of a type distinctively dif- 
ferent from that which results from the standard high school training. To the ex- 
tent indicated in the foregoing it is a general high school. 

"It tends strongly, however, to arouse interest in occupations in which the 
special training of the mechanical departments can be utilized. It furnished a good 
preparation for a large variety of occupations related to the industries and in which the 
knowledge of drawing and mechanical processes are important elements of success. 
To that extent it is vocational." 

1 To the further questions: "Do you believe that the course of study of the Me- 
chanic Arts High School should continue to serve as a preparation for the technical 
college so that at the end of the four years' course the pupil could meet its entrance 
examinations? If so, why?" he makes the following reply: "I believe that one of the 
functions of the school should be to prepare boys for technical colleges. It was or- 
ganized in 1892 as a high school. A fundamental principle of that organization was 
that it should be properly articulated with the schools below and above it. Move- 
ment from it to higher institutions of the same type has always been recognized as 
fitting and logical. 

2 "That an intelligent community desires the continuance of this policy is con- 
clusively shown by the record of enrollment. The rapid reduction in applications 
for admission and in the percentage of persistence in the various classes since 1909 
has been very largely due to the announcement by the School Committee of the in- 
tention to make a radical change in the course of study 

"If there are defects of organization or administration they should be remedied 
without radical changes calculated to disturb the public mind and give the impres- 
sion that the school has not accomplished its purpose. The records show clearly 
that it has done successfully the work for which it was organized. If new aims are 
desirable, in view of changed economic, industrial, or social conditions, a course adapted 
to meet those ends should be developed in harmonious relationship with existing 
work." — Reply to questionaires by the headmaster. 



22 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

senting the position of the headmaster, they at least indicate 
his faith in the purpose and work of the school as it is at present 
organized and a lack of agreement with the changes proposed 
by the School Committee. 

7. Every evidence shows a variance in aim between the work 
of the school and the purpose of the School Committee. It is 
sufficient to point out here that such things as the presence of 
certain subjects in the course of study, as for example, French, 
and the absence of certain others, such as economics and shop 
management; the specific aims in the teaching of the various 
subjects as given in the report of the school; the high per cent 
of academic work as compared with a low per cent of shop work ; 
the non-commercial basis on which the shop work is organized; 
the absence of business and executive training — are all indica- 
tions that it is not the conscious aim of the school to train for 
executive positions in productive industry. It seems fair to 
say that where students achieve this aim as they, like the gradu- 
ates of other schools sometimes undoubtedly do, the result is 
an accidental by-product largely dependent upon native quali- 
ties. 

8. In view of the evidence presented above, the writer believes 
that the aim of the Mechanic Arts High School is essentially 
that of a school offering to its pupils a general education of the 
kind given by the English High School, supplemented by a 
certain amount of manual training of the conventional kind. 
It is needless to point out here how far this differs from the task 
of preparing those who wish to go directly from this school 
into industry. 



Ill 

HOW FAR IS THE SCHOOL REACHING BOYS WHO 

DESIRE PREPARATION FOR INDUSTRIAL 

CAREERS? 

1. A special school always means a special group of pupils. 
This fact cannot be too strongly emphasized. Certain limita- 
tions and standards as to the kind of boys the school would be 
expected to serve are set up when the School Committee estab- 
lishes as the aim of the Mechanic Arts High School, the pre- 
paration of "non-commissioned officers of industry." In tak- 
ing this action the School Committee, as previously suggested, 
has in effect ruled that the school shall accept for training only 
those boys who wish to be trained for industrial careers, and 
who have the ability to profit by such training. It is a waste 
of public money to prepare persons for work which they will 
not or cannot follow. 

2. The school has made no special effort to get this kind of boy. 
No machinery has been set up for his selection, in spite of the 
very strong recommendation to this effect in the report of Mr. 
Williston. As has already been pointed out, the aim to prepare 
for industrial careers has not been advertised by the authori- 
ties of the school as a controlling purpose. The headmaster 
himself admits that the boys have been admitted to the school 
on the same basis and through the use of the same methods of 
selection as the pupils of other Boston High Schools 1 ; but claims 



1 "The choice of a high school is usually made in the light of such information as 
the boys and their parents get from other boys who have attended high schools, or 
their parents, supplemented by the statements of the principals of the grammar 
schools. 

"As the decision touching from 300 to 600 boys had to be made in a single day, 
it was obviously impossible to obtain and consider adequately the data suggested by 
your questions, or to conduct interviews with parents." — Replies to questionaire by 
the headmaster. 

"Since September, 1907, practically all boys who have applied for admission to 
the Mechanic Arts High School have been admitted. From 1902 to 1907 inclusive, 
a considerable number were refused on account of lack of accommodation, but for 
no other reason. . . . Applicants were received on the basis of general records 
for scholarships in the grammar school. . . . After a full discussion the Com- 
mittee on Manual Training of the School Board decided unanimously that a selec- 
tion on the basis of merit as determined by the grammar school record was the only 
definite plan." — Replies to questionaire by the headmaster. 

23 



24 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

that to a very large extent the school does reach the boy desir- 
ing to be trained for industry. 

3. The pupils of the school necessarily enter with a variety of 
aims. The reasons are obvious. Given an institution whose 
controlling purpose is to afford general education as well as 
preparation for the engineering college, which, like any general 
high school, admits all applicants holding a grammar school 
diploma, and which offers an opportunity to take in addition a 
course in manual training of the conventional kind, three kinds 
of students must inevitably result: (a) Those desiring to be 
fitted for the engineering college; (b) those desiring to add to 
a regular high school education an elementary experience with 
tools; and (c) those desiring preparation for positions in indus- 
try. 

4. The presence of these three classes of students in the school 
is shown by the statements of the pupils themselves, as to their 
motive in taking the work. One-half of them at entrance ex- 
press an intention of going to the engineering college, although 
less than 15 per cent ever actually attend such an institution. 
The fact that less than one out of three of the prospective 
students of the engineering college ever attend it would seem to 
indicate that some of them, how many it is, of course, impossible 
to learn, gave such an answer without any very serious purpose 
to support it. 1 Out of the remaining 50 per cent, probably 
from twenty to twenty-five per cent desire a general education 
with manual training. 2 The remainder come to get prepara- 
tion for positions in industry. 



1 "For a series of years, a little less than half of the members of the first year class 
declared their intention of going to a technical|college; probably about half of that 
number have, at the outset, a fairly fixed intention of taking a higher course." — 
Replies to guesiionaire by the headmaster. 

Further figures obtained through the school office in 1912, given in Appendix J 
of this report, show that in March of that year, of the total number of pupils in the 
school, approximately 42 per cent reported their intention of going to college; 40 
per cent reported they were not going; and the remainder were undecided. In the 
senior class, 44 per cent said they were going, and 6 per cent were undecided. 

2 Questionaires as to their future occupation and their motive in coming to the 
school were given to 112 boys selected at random, the method being to take boys 
whose names began with the letter S. Of this number approximately 40 per cent 
said they intended to enter the Engineering College or other higher institution of 
learning, or that they chose the Mechanic Arts High School because it offered prepar- 
ation for such institutions, while about 10 per cent were undecided as to whether 
they intended to go to the engineering college. Of the remaining 50 per cent, about 
one-half, or approximately 25 per cent of the whole number questioned, apparently 
intended to go into productive industry. The remaining 25 per cent had evidently 



The School and Preparation for Industrial Careers 25 

This estimate seems to be borne out by the replies of certain 
pupils to the questionaire described in the preceding footnote. 
There is every reason to believe that these come to the Me- 
chanic Arts High School largely because it is the only high 
school in the city which promises preparation in any way re- 
lated to what they wish to do on leaving school. Less than one 
out of ten of these have any intention of becoming productive 
workers in the trades in which the school offers a little elemen- 
tary instruction, such as those of the machinist, carpenter, pat- 
tern maker, and blacksmith, and the number who follow such 
callings may be regarded as negligible. Indeed, an examina- 
tion of the table giving a comparison of the occupations of 
graduates of the school and of the English High School would 
seem to show that on the whole at least as many graduates of 
the latter become journeymen workers in skilled callings as of 
the former. (See Appendix G.) 

5. The records of the pupils after leaving the school confirm the 
foregoing statements regarding their varying aims. Here again 
it has been impossible to secure any extensive and thoroughly 
accurate information. The school has never organized a place- 
ment bureau or kept accurate and systematic records following 
up the careers of graduates or of boys who drop out before com- 
pleting the course. This report has been compelled to rely for 
its data upon certain returns made by graduates to the head- 
master in response to a circular letter sent out in 1908 and at 
class reunions since that time. These returns are necessarily 
fragmentary and unsatisfactory and can be relied upon only as 
showing general tendencies as to occupation of the more suc- 
cessful graduates of the school. 

Approximately four out of every ten pupils leave before 
graduation. It should be said in passing that measured by the 
proportion of its enrollment which remains to graduate, the 
Mechanic Arts High School has been more successful than any 
other Boston high school. And there is every reason to believe 
that if the aim of the school were made more definite this per- 
centage would be still higher. There is absolutely no record of 
any character at the school concerning the 40 per cent who 

come to the school for a wide variety of reasons. Of this group approximately 10 
per cent intended to go into business pursuits, while most of the remaining 15 per 
cent were evidently in the school for no definite purpose. It should be noted that 
the 112 boys composing the group questioned included not only boys in the first year 
class, but also boys in every class in the school, some of whom had undoubtedly been 
turned towards industrial life by their experience in the school. 



26 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

withdraw, after their names are stricken from the roll. The 
headmaster says that they "generally accept whatever employ- 
ment they can secure without much regard to their native apti- 
tude or training." This means that they follow the usual 
employments of high school pupils who fail to finish the course. 

Of the 60 per cent who graduate, less than one out of four 
go to the engineering college. The remaining three out of every 
four, on finishing the course, go into a wide variety of occupations 
of the kind usually taken up by graduates of the regular high 
school. A comparison of the occupations of graduates of the 
Mechanic Arts High School and the English High School, who 
do not attend the engineering college, shows that they distribute 
themselves among about the same kinds of employment. Nor 
does it appear that those from the former school follow very 
much more frequently than those from the latter, callings either 
on the productive and distributive, or the business and direc- 
tive side of industry. (See Appendix G.) Only a small per 
cent of the graduates become " non-commissioned officers 
of industry" as the term is defined by the School Committee. 
Here again it was impossible to obtain entirely satisfactory in- 
formation since all the statistics regarding the occupations of 
graduates gathered by the school deals with them as one group 
and therefore makes impossible any study of the employments 
of those who attended the engineering college separate from 
that of those who did not. 

It is only fair to say here that the headmaster of the school 
claims "that a large percentage of the graduates have found 
employment appropriately related to the special training which 
they have received." The strength of this statement depends, 
of course, upon just what occupations may be considered 
"appropriately related" to "the special training which they 
have received." He also claims that "not far from 65 per cent 
become draftsmen, electricians, foremen, superintendents, and 
salesmen, or engage in some other occupations more or less con- 
nected with the industries." 1 All of the data gathered for this 
report seem to indicate that the number of those employed as 
skilled workmen or on the business and directive side of pro- 



1 In Appendix J of this report a partial list covering some 90 occupations Is given 
to which the training of the Mechanic Arts High School should lead if the aim of the 
school committee were carried out. 

In Appendices E, F, and G are given tables showing the occupations of graduates 
of the Mechanic Arts High School, obtained through more than 900 responses to a 



The School and Preparation for Industrial Careers 27 

ductive industry not including graduates and former students of 
the engineering college in any capacity is nearer 35 than 65 per cent. 

Conclusions 

Whatever may be the exact figures as to the number of boys 
who come to the school to be prepared for industry on the busi- 
ness and directive side, the following facts appear to be true: 

(1) About 50 per cent of all the pupils who enter the school 
do so with a more or less vague intention of being prepared for 
the engineering college, but less than one out of seven of these 
ever actually attend the engineering college. 

(2) About 40 per cent of all the pupils who enter the school 
fail to finish the course and so far as after-employment is con- 
cerned go the way of the usual high school pupil. 

(3) About 25 per cent enter for purposes of general education 
with manual training. To this number must be added certain 
others who, on entering, intended to prepare for the engineering 
college, but during their course have abandoned this purpose. 

(4) About 25 per cent of each entering class wish to be pre- 
pared for some form of productive industry. To this number 
must be added those who enter for the purpose of preparing for 
the engineering college, but later go into industry. 

(5) From the standpoint of the aim of the School Committee 
to use the school for preparation for industrial careers, the 
institution has been not more than from 25 to 35 per cent suc- 
cessful in reaching the kind of boys desiring this training. 

(6) On the other hand, it is unquestionably true that a large 
proportion of all the boys — including many who aspire to the 
engineering college, many who fail to finish, many whose pur- 
pose for lack of accurate knowledge now appears to be general; 
and also including all of the 25 per cent who indicate industrial 
aims — would, if the school had a more definite and clearly de- 
fined industrial aim, find their own more or less indistinct and 
indefinite industrial ambition crystallized and would, conse- 
quently, cordially welcome an opportunity for an intensive 
industrial training. 

questionaire sent out by the school office to all graduates. While the method is not 
sufficiently extensive or the data so classified as to warrant hard and fast conclusions 
it seems only fair to point out that according to these returns not more than about 
14 of these 90 occupations are now being followed at all by the graduates of the school 
who do not attend an engineering college, and that not more than about 20 were being 
followed by all graduates. It is to be further noted than an examination of Ap- 
pendix G will show that about 13 of these occupations are being followed by gradu- 
ates of the English High School, as shown by 808 responses. 



IV 

IS THE SCHOOL GIVING THE KIND OF TRAINING 

WHICH THE AIM OF THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE 

REQUIRES? 

The Course of Study 

1. When the School Committee set up a special aim for the 
Mechanic Arts High School, it, in effect, directed that the course 
of study should be such as to insure the efficient training of those 
who go directly from the high school into industry. This action 
limits the instruction to this specific purpose, predetermines a 
certain kind of course, and automatically excludes all subjects 
that do not directly contribute towards this particular aim. 

2. The course of study printed in the school report is not the 
right kind of course to give the training contemplated by the 
School Committee. In order to understand in what respects the 
present curriculum fails to meet the aim of the Committee, it 
is first necessary to determine what training for industry should 
be. 

It has already been pointed out that as "a non-commissioned 
officer " he is to be concerned with production on the business 
and directive side. His training should include instruction 
along two general lines: viz., methods of production in industry 
and business practice and organization as applied to manu- 
facturing. 

Training on the productive side should be largely given 
through shop practice and should include instruction in the 
tools, machines, materials, and processes employed in manu- 
facturing plants; shop organization; the economics of produc- 
tion; and the applications of science, mathematics, and drawing 
to manufacturing and mechanical work. 

Neither extreme productive capacity nor extreme technical ability 
should be the aim of this part of the training of the pupil. It 
is not the purpose of the school to turn out prospective skilled 
mechanics in metal, wood, electricity, or any other industry, 

28 



Kind of Training 29 

nor to train technical experts, such as a designer for a cotton 
mill or a chemist for a rolling mill, but rather to send out young 
men who, through shop experience and instruction in at least 
a few typical industries, have gained an intelligent idea of the 
methods of manufacturing establishments so far as these can be 
profitably learned by a high school boy. 

On the business and directive side, the training should aim to 
make the pupil "business-wise" in the affairs of industry. To 
this end, the course should include instruction in the elemen- 
tary principles of business procedure, business organization, 
applied economics and the practical applications of science, 
mathematics, drafting, and English, as these subjects enter 
into the business transactions of a manufacturing or a con- 
struction business. 

As a future worker in industry and a citizen, the pupil should 
understand his social and civic rights and responsibilities and 
should know and have an intelligent interest in the way the 
city, state, and nation carry on the business of government. 
Instruction in the practical affairs of citizenship should, there- 
fore, be included in the curriculum. 

3. The present course of study for the school as obtained from 
the headmaster follows : 

PRESENT COURSE OF STUDY FOR THE MECHANIC ARTS HIGH 
SCHOOL, 1913-14 

First Year 

Periods per Week Mos. 

Algebra 5 10 

General History 2 l A 10 

English 23^ 10 

Elementary Science 2% 6 

Drawing 2Y 2 10 

Carpentry 23^ 7 

Wood-carving 10 3 

Second Year 

Periods per Week Mos. 

Algebra : . 2V 2 10 

Plane Geometry 5 10 

History of the U. S. and Civil Government 23^ 10 

English 2}/ 2 10 

French 2]/ 2 10 



30 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

Drawing 2}4 10 

Wood-turning and Pattern-making 10 5 

Forging 10 5 

Third Year 

Periods per Week Mos. 

Solid Geometry 5 5 

Plane Trigonometry 6 5 

Physics 2 l / 2 10 

English 2Y 2 10 

French 5 10 

Drawing 2Y 2 10 

Machinist's work — with hand tools mainly 6 3 

With machine tools mainly 5 7 

Fourth Year 

Trigonometry: Applications to physics, surveying, and 

navigation 23^ 10 

Physics, laboratory work 2Y 2 10 

Chemistry 6 10 

Algebra 2 l / 2 10 

Geometry 5 10 

History of the United States 2Y 2 10 

English 2Y 2 10 

French 5 10 

German 5 10 

Drawing 2}/ 2 10 

Machine shop practice, and projects involving the 

shop work of preceding years 10 10 

4. The course of study recommended by this report is as follows: 

PROPOSED COURSE 
First Year 

Periods per Week Mos. 

Applied Mathematics 5 10 

Shop Arithmetic, dealing with practical shop prob- 
lems along the lines indicated in Appendix D, pages 
73-74, and leading into Elementary Algebra. Ap- 
plied Geometry of an elementary character such as 
grows out of the arithmetic, drawing, or shop courses. 

English 6 10 

The work in English is described on pages 79-81 
To alternate every other day or week with 
Citizenship. 



Kind of Training 31 

Citizenship 5 10 

The work in Citizenship is described on pages 75-76. 
To alternate every other day or week with English. 

Science 5 10 

Simple mechanics and the properties of materials 
to be taught through laboratory methods in double 
periods every other day, alternating with mechanical 
drafting. See statement regarding the work, page 
76. 

Mechanical and Free Hand Drafting 5 10 

Practical shop drawing to be given in double per- 
iods every other day, alternating with science labor- 
atory. 
Shop Work and Carpentry 10 to 15 10 



30 to 35 

Second Year 

Periods per Week Mos. 

Applied Mathematics 5 10 

A continuation and extension of the course in first 
year in accordance with the suggestions outlined on 
page 76 to 77 of Appendix. 

English 5 10 

Alternating every other day or week with history. 
Industrial and Economic History of New England and 

the United States 5 10 

As discussed in Appendix B, page 74. To al- 
ternate every other day or week with English. 

Applied Science 5 10 

With special reference to the industrial uses of 
heat, light, and power, as discussed in Appendix B, 
page 76. To be given in double periods every other 
day, alternating with mechanical drafting. 

Mechanical Drafting 5 10 

Alternating with the science work in double per- 
iods every other day. 
Shop Work — Forging and Patternmaking 10 to 15 10 



30 to 35 
Third Year 

Periods per Week Mos. 

Applied Mathematics 5 10 

English 5 10 

Alternating every other day with history. 



32 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School. 

History 5 10 

A presentation of the world's progress with special 
and constant reference to the industrial and eco- 
nomic causes and factors involved. Alternating 
every other day with English, see page 74. 

Applied Science 5 10 

Industrial Chemistry and the strength of materials 
— taught in double periods every other week, altern- 
ately with mechanical drafting. 

Mechanical Drafting 6 10 

Taught in double periods every other week, altern- 
ating with science. 

Shop Work 10 to 15 10 

Machine shop practice and machine construction 

30 to 35 
Fourth Year 

Periods per Week Mos. 

General Mathematics 6 10 

Organizing, systematizing, and advancing the ap- 
plied mathematics of previous years with constant 
applications of principles to practical work. 

English 6 10 

Alternating every other day with economics. 

Economics and Organization 5 10 

Economics based on the background of economic 
history previously taught and dealing with economic 
law and its application to modern day industrial 
problems as discussed in Appendix B, page 74. Or- 
ganization to deal with practices in business, shop, and 
organization as discussed in Appendix B. Economics 
and organization twenty weeks each. The two as 
one course alternating every other day or week with 
English. 

General Science 5 10 

Unifying and organizing the results of the labora- 
tory work and practical experience of previous yeara 
and giving more advanced instruction of a quanti- 
tative character in mechanics, industrial chemistry, 
and power. Double periods every other day. 

Mechanical Drafting 5 10 

Taught in double periods every other day. 

Shop Work 10 to 15 10 

The pupils should be offered a choice of a year's 
work from any one of the following courses, or from 
as many as are desired: architectural construction; 
machine construction and tool making; advanced 
woodwork and pattern making; electrical industries, 

including power. 

30 to 35 



Kind of Training 33 

5. A comparison of the two above courses of study reveals the 
following points of difference 1 : 

(a) While both courses offer instruction in such subjects as 
English, mathematics, science, history, shop practice, and 
civics, the aims, contents, underlying pedagogical theories, and 
methods differ widely, as has already been suggested, and will 
be further shown in this report. 

(b) The present course of study offers instruction in the fol- 
lowing subjects not included in that proposed by this report: 

(1) French. 

(2) German. 

(3) General college preparatory courses in such subjects as 

mathematics, science, and English. 

However important instruction in these subjects may be as 
part of a general education or as preparation for college, they 
have no more to do with the business of manufacturing than 
have Latin, Greek, or any other cultural subject and do not 
belong in the curriculum of a special school whose aim is to train 
prospective officers of industry. 

The differences between the general courses of mathematics 
and science now offered in the school and the special courses 
herein recommended have already been referred to and are 
further discussed in the following paragraphs. Wood-turning, 
carving, and many other parts of the shop work, also in the 
present course of study, have no place in the course if the school 
is to accomplish the Committee's aim. 

(c) The present course does not give instruction in the follow- 
ing subjects: 



1 The proposed course of study given above is one which the writer, after careful 
consideration of the possible resources of the school and the problems to be met 
believes to be the most feasible scheme at the present time. At the same time he 
desires to point out that this course is not a complete and final solution. It must, 
of course, be modified and improved by experience and to meet changing conditions. 
If the school were just being established with ample resources at its command, a 
better training for industrial careers could readily be devised, which, in the opinion 
of the report, would contain among other changes, such features as the following: 
(1) A longer school day, of not less than seven net hours of instruction; (2) more time 
devoted to shop work, not less than three hours per day; (3) smaller shop classes, 
not more than twenty to the instructor; (4) instruction in the electrical industries in- 
cluding the applications of power at least equal in the amount of time and equip- 
ment to that now proposed for each of the various shop courses; (5) instruction in 
foundry work. 



34 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School. 

(1) Business practice. 

(2) Business organization. 

(3) Applied economics. 

(4) Shop organization. 

(5) Problems in applied citizenship. 

Instruction in these subjects, it has already been pointed out, 
is absolutely necessary to the kind of training which the School 
Committee wishes the school to give. Although civics is in- 
cluded in the course of study given in the school report, instruc- 
tion in this subject follows the usual high school treatment and 
is not the kind of course recommended in this report. Sugges- 
tions concerning the character of the course in civics are to be 
found in Appendix B (page 75). 

(d) The controlling aim of the curriculum recommended in this 
report is to fit for profitable employment and responsibility in 
industry, and each subject should be made to contribute directly 
to that end. The aim of the course in mathematics, for ex- 
ample, should be to enable the pupil to use mathematics in 
solving the practical problems that he will meet in the business 
of industry; the course in drawing should aim to teach him 
to interpret intelligently mechanical drawings as they are used in 
the industrial world and to make sketches and working drawings 
for commercial purposes; the aim of the course in science should 
be to equip the pupil with the knowledge and habit of scientific 
method as applied to industrial processes; and the shop work 
should aim to give him as a consumer an insight into commercial 
shop processes, shop organization and management, which shall 
enable him to make practical use of such information in solving 
the problems of his future work. 

In contrast to these aims are those for the different subjects 
included in the present course, as given in the school report. It 
is there stated that "The main purpose of the mathematical 
course is to train pupils to habits of accuracy in thought and 
expression, and to give them clear notions of the value and con- 
venience of mathematical processes in the investigation of 
practical problems." In both physics and chemistry, the aim 
of the instruction is "to awaken interest in scientific pursuits, 
and lay a good foundation for subsequent work." 

In speaking of the aim of the mechanical work the school 
report says, "It is the aim of the mechanical department to 



Kind of Training 35 

teach in a thorough and systematic way, the elements of car- 
pentry, joinery, wood-carving, wood-turning, pattern-making, 
forging of iron and steel, chipping, filing, fitting, and machine 
tool work." At another point it is stated that "the training 
school . . . teaches the elements of mechanic arts primarily 
on account of their educational value, just as arithmetic and 
geometry are taught." 

These aims, in common with the general aims discussed in 
an earlier part of this report, are aims of general education. 
Nowhere is there any specific statement of purpose relating to 
the various subjects given in the course of study which indi- 
cates that any subject is included because of its vocational 
value or is taught with a view to its practical application in 
industry. 

(e) There is little or no industrial content in the various sub- 
jects as taught in the school, included in the course of study 
given in the school report. An analysis of the course in mathe- 
matics, for example, shows that it does not materially differ 
from the course in mathematics in any good general high school. 1 

While this course in mathematics is undoubtedly well adapted 
to preparing boys for the technical college it contains many 
topics that the future officer of industry will never need and 
omits entirely most of the topics recommended by this report. 
It is only fair to say that here and there in the school the writer 
found instruction being given in some of the topics suggested in 
the Appendix of this report, as supplementary to the regular 
course in mathematics. Such instruction was, on the whole, 
only incidental, and no well-organized plan of instruction along 
the lines herein recommended appears to have been worked out. 



1 "The first year's work (in algebra) has special reference to the attainment of pro- 
ficiency in the more important processes and extends through simultaneous quad- 
ratics. The second year's work is a review of the work of the preceding year and 
extends through progressions. Algebraic methods are employed in the solution of 
such problems as are met with in the study of physical sciences, and in the mechanical 
department of the school. 

"During the second year the subject of plane geometry is completed. The first 
half of the third year is devoted to the principles of solid geometry and to numerous 
exercises illustrating and enforcing them, while the remainder of the year is given 
to plane trigonometry and reviews. 

"The work of this year in trigonometry is designed to familiarize the student with 
the fundamental principles and formulae. The subject is continued in the fourth 
year with special reference to its application, to problems in surveying, navigation, 
and physical science." 






36 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

It is also true that, in the case of certain other subjects, such 
as English, history, and science, instruction of an industrial 
character, supplementary to the regular course, is being given. 
In general it remains true that such instruction also is only 
incidental and that these subjects are not in any vital way cor- 
related with industry and the work of the shop. 

(f) A further difference between the two courses of training 
under discussion is the educational theory on which each is based. 
The present course of study is founded on the theory that every 
pupil is endowed with certain faculties like memory, reason, and 
judgment, and that to educate him you have only to train his 
faculties. These faculties once thoroughly trained in any field 
of thought give power that can be successfully transferred to 
any other field. The school report says, as already noted, 
that "the primary purpose of the school is to secure the har- 
monious development of all the powers of the pupil" and that 
"the training which it (the school) gives is not less valuable to 
a boy who is to become a lawyer or a physician than to one who 
is to superintend a manufacturing establishment or work at 
the bench." Again, in speaking of the course in mathematics, 
it says, "the aim is to train pupils to habits of accuracy of 
thought and expression." These statements indicate a belief 
in the value of formal discipline — a theory long since repudiated 
by most of the best psychologists. 

In contrast to this theory of education the course of study 
recommended in this report is based on the theory that, in order 
to develop special capacity in any given field, such as that of 
productive industry, the pupil must be trained in that special 
field. 

6. On the whole, as has already been stated, the present course 
of study in the Mechanic Arts High School must be regarded as 
little more than a general preparatory course for the engineering 
college. The aim and content of such subjects as mathematics, 
English, science, and history, it appears, do not essentially 
differ from the aim and content of the same subjects in the 
English High School. To a large extent, the two schools use 
the same text-books and the same methods of instruction. 
They set up the same limits of study in various subjects, their 
classroom instructors have the same qualifications, and both 
schools fit for the same engineering colleges. Even French is 



Kind of Training 37 

offered in the Mechanic Arts High School for no other purpose 
than to enable the graduate to meet the entrance requirements 
of the engineering college, and the only reason Latin has not 
been included in the course would seem to be that there has 
not been a sufficient demand for it to form a class. 1 

The whole policy of the special schools for Boston is based on 
the different assumption that not only do secondary school 
pupils have different aims, aptitudes, and possibilities, but that 
to realize them, special schools, each with its distinct aim and 
course, are necessary. The course now offered by the Mechanic 
Arts High School, it has been clearly shown, does not agree 
with this policy. 

In the field of higher education the old theory of formal dis- 
cipline has been almost entirely discarded. No one to-day would 
think of claiming that the lawyer could be as well trained for his 
life work in an institution giving only a general training as in a 
modern law school, or that an engineer or physician could be 
best trained in a college of letters. Experience has shown be- 
yond question the advantage of special training for special 
fields of work; and the principle applies with as much force in 
the field of secondary education as it does in the field of profes- 
sional training. 

Instkuction 

1. When the School Committee, by official action, decreed that 
the Mechanic Arts High School should be a special school for 
the training of officers of industry, it thereby set up, as has 
already been pointed out, certain requirements as to the methods 
and nature of the instruction to be given in this school, made 
necessary by virtue of the fact that it was a special school hav- 
ing a special aim. 

2. The methods of teaching used are not adapted to the prepara- 
tion of boys for industrial careers. This fact, it should be said 
in passing, is in no sense a criticism of the instructors at present 



141 Numerous inquiries concerning the school have been made by parents who are 
anxious to give their sons the advantages of a thorough course in manual training, 
but who also desire to have them begin Latin when they enter the high school, as a 
part of their course in preparation for college. If such applications should be re- 
ceived in sufficient number to justify the formation of special classes, the question of 
making Latin elective subject throughout the course will be seriously considered." 
Cat., 1901, page 23. 



38 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

serving in the school. It must be repeated that the school 
possesses an able corps of teachers whose work is unquestion- 
ably equal to that in any of the Boston high schools. Undoubt- 
edly they are thoroughly well qualified to teach college pre- 
paratory subjects and, for the most part, the shop men, because 
of their wide experience in industry, are well fitted to train boys 
for industrial pursuits. It remains true, however, that, in view 
of the aim of the Committee, many of the requirements neces- 
sary to efficient instruction of the kind recommended by this 
report are not now met by the school. At a later point the ques- 
tion of instructors is further discussed. 

3. The shops must be run on a commercial basis, to prepare 
boys for the demands of industry; they must be properly equipped; 
pupils must be taught individually or in small groups rather 
than by classes; the teaching methods of shop and classroom 
must be adapted to the aim of the school; and every instructor, 
through trade experience and industrial contact, must be quali- 
fied to give his part of the special kind of training the school is 
expected to confer. 

The experience of the best industrial schools, as well as such 
institutions as Pratt Institute, Wentworth Institute, and Car- 
negie Institute of Technology, goes to prove that, if shop instruc- 
tion is to be efficient as a means of training for industry, it must 
be so conducted as to result in a product that can be put to some 
practical use. In the case of the Mechanic Arts High School 
this product could be disposed of to the school department, or 
to other city departments, by an arrangement similar to that 
which now obtains between the Boys' Industrial School and 
the school department. While the amount of output from the 
shops would be small, a usable output is necessary, if for no 
other reason, to avoid the waste and misuse that results from 
breaking up the product or giving it away for private use. Fur- 
thermore, a usable product, practical in character, made in re- 
sponse to an actual demand, is the only way in which reality 
can be given to the shop training. 

The shops of the school as a whole are practically non-productive 
at the present time. The list of all the different jobs completed 
in 1911-12, submitted by the headmaster, shows that not less 
than 70 per cent of them were exercises like those commonly 
performed in the conventional manual training school, consist- 



Kind of Training 39 

ing of such things as: making a miter joint, a square joint, square 
prisms, flower trellis, coat hanger, carving an ink stand, carving 
a rosette, making flat rings, test pieces, brackets, staples, hooks, 
cylinder patterns, taper patterns, plugs, iron blocks, and shafts, 
as contrasted with the kind of " jobs" done by the methods em- 
ployed in a commercial shop. 1 

According to records obtained in the school office, approx- 
mately 28,000 "jobs" were completed by about 1,400 boys in 
1911-12, an average of about twenty jobs per pupil. This 
includes all jobs, exercises, and projects successfully done in the 
shops, including such things as sharpening lathe tools, fitting 
key to lock, grinding lathe centers, sharpening cutters, making 
staples, sharpening saws, as well as more important "jobs" 
and exercises. 

Less than 25 per cent of the things made in the shops were 
put to use in the school, it being the practice to give most of the 
finished exercises or finished work to the pupil to take home, 
no charge usually being made for the material supplied entirely 
at public expenses. Nothing made in the shops with these 
1,400 workers was either sold or utilized in the school depart- 
ment or other departments of the city as is done w T ith the out- 
put of the shops of the Boston Industrial School for Boys. It 
should be said in justice to the school that many of the shop 
instructors are more than willing to undertake more practical 
work and have been planning to do so as soon as the shop classes 
have been reduced in size and the amount of shop time increased. 

4. The methods of handling the work should closely correspond 
to the best practice in commercial shops. 2 The character of the 
product turned out in some of the shops, the fact that the stock 
in the wood-working shop, at least, is commonly gotten out by 
instructors and that the work is largely organized on an exer- 
cise basis, indicate that this is not generally true. 

The best features of commercial shop organization in such 
matters as planning and routing jobs, checking and inspecting 



1 It is only fair to say that some of the "jobs" turned out in the various shops are 
of a commercial character. These, however, constitute only a small per cent of the 
total output of the school. 

2 In discussing the question of commercial methods, the headmaster says, "Com- 
mercial shop methods are always mentioned and explained in comparison with the 
simpler job methods by which the pupil is usually first made acquainted with the 
process, and frequently the commercial method of procedure is actually used in the 
school shop." 



40 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

work, order systems, cost and production accounts, time ac- 
counts, records showing the movement of stock and jobs through 
the shops, the tagging and repair of incapacitated machines, 
and in the various other details of shop management should be 
employed wherever possible. To a limited extent, such things 
as time cards, job cards, and stock orders are now used. If the 
school is to instruct boys efficiently in the principles of shop or- 
ganization and management, however, this feature of shop 
organization needs to be much more fully developed. 

5. Shop instruction in the best industrial trade and secondary 
technical schools is usually given either to the individual pupil 
or to small groups. If the shops are run on a commercial basis, 
the diverse character of the work makes it impossible for the 
instructor to handle large classes. Experience goes to show 
that, under ordinary conditions, one instructor cannot efficiently 
handle more than twenty pupils in a shop class. 

The shop classes are overcrowded. The records of the Mechanic 
Arts High School show that these accommodate from eighteen 
to forty pupils, dropping down to the smaller number only in 
the case of one or two divisions of the first year class near the 
close of the year and not going below thirty-one in the case of 
the fourth year class. The average shop class appears to be 
about thirty-four pupils while classes in elementary science have 
risen to eighty pupils. Judging from the statements in the 
catalogue, as well as from an examination of the plant, the draft- 
ing rooms and shops have been definitely planned and equipped 
with a view to accommodating classes of about that size. 1 

The headmaster also appears to be of the opinion that, on 
the whole, the equipment of the shops and the cost of material, 
as well as sound methods of pedagogy, justify shop teaching by 
groups rather than by individual instruction. 2 



1 That it has been the policy of the school to organize the work on the basis of 
large classes would seem to be evident from a statement in the catalogue which says, 
"to enable the largest number of pupils to enjoy the advantages of the school, it is 
necessary that each division should contain the maximum number for which the 
shops and the drawing rooms are equipped."— Cat., 1904, page 56. 

2 On this point the following questions were submitted to the headmaster: Ques- 
tion Number 11 —If you use the group method of teaching, please give the reasons: 
(a) because the method is best as a means of teaching? (b) because the class is 
too large to be handled otherwise? (c) because the equipment is best adapted to 
the group method? (d) because otherwise too much material would be spoiled? (e) 
because best results are obtained after careful preliminary direction to the group? 
(f) Because immature boys learn best by the imitation? 

In reply, the headmaster says: "The group method is preferred for all the reasons 
stated in Question Number XI." 



Kind of Training 41 

While nothing in the headmaster's reply quoted above is said 
in regard to the size of the groups, the fact that the school is 
organized on the basis of about thirty-four pupils to the section 
and that no pupils have been refused admittance because the 
sections were too large for efficient work seems to indicate that 
the headmaster believes that large sections are necessary and 
can be successfully taught on a demonstration and imitation 
basis, which is the only method that can be used with sections 
of this size. 

Leading psychologists, as well as practical shop men, are 
agreed that boys cannot be effectively taught shop work for any 
practical purpose on an imitation and demonstration basis 
alone, and that demonstration and lectures are valuable only 
as they are accompanied or preceded on the part of the pupil 
by actual participation in practical work. Where an instructor 
is obliged to handle shop classes of thirty to forty pupils he is 
forced to teach by lectures, demonstration, and imitation, and 
instead of using practical shop methods is compelled to organize 
his work on an exercise basis. Under these conditions the 
school fails to realize on the commercial experience of the shop 
instructor — the most valuable asset he brings to his work. 

6. In order to teach successfully the application of drawing, 
science, mathematics, and English to industrial work, instruction 
in these subjects should be so organized that much of it can be 
given in connection with the shop work and at the moment it 
is needed. This can be successfully done by teaching pupils to 
make drawings, write specifications and reports, figure costs, 
and make shop calculations as a part of their practical shop 
work. This would greatly aid in bringing the necessary shop 
atmosphere into the classroom. To a very limited extent, 
instruction of this character is now being given in the school by 
requiring the pupils to make simple calculations and sketches, 
in the shops and in the classroom. This instruction, however, 
owing to the character of much of the shop work and the lack 
of systematic correlation between the work of the shops and 
that of the classrooms, is lacking in reality and fails to give 
the pupil the power he needs in practical application. 

The instruction in related subjects referred to above should be 
supplemented by close and systematic correlation between the 
practical work of the shops and the regular work of the class- 



42 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

rooms. Especially is this true of the work of the drafting rooms. 
A large part of the work done in this department should be in 
direct response to the needs of the shops. It does not appear 
that very much of the work turned out by the drafting depart- 
ment, excellent as it is, is now put to practical use in the shops. 

7. The regular school text-books contain but little material that 
can be used except for reference in classroom instruction in such 
subjects as mathematics, science, economics, civics, and the 
like, in a course preparing for industrial careers such as those 
herein proposed. To a large extent the material for these sub- 
jects should be gathered from trade publications, the school 
shops, outside commercial plants, and similar sources. This 
makes it necessary to a considerable extent for the instructor to 
write his own text-books. These he can prepare in the form of 
mimeograph sheets and blue prints. The writer does not find 
this is generally done in the school at present. Teaching or- 
ganized in this way is much more flexible and can readily be 
adapted to the needs of pupils and the demands of industry. 

8. As a further means of making such instruction effective, the 
pupil should be required to visit outside plants and study, under 
direction, their business and shop organization and their methods 
of work. Representatives of such plants should be brought 
in from time to time to give special lectures on practical subjects 
relating to the affairs of productive industry. As elsewhere 
suggested, a plan should also be worked out whereby pupils 
should be required during their vacation to serve in commercial 
plants. The part-time class, elsewhere discussed in this report, 
is another and the best means of bringing an industrial atmos- 
phere into the school. It does not appear that any of these 
devices are now systematically used in the school. 

Instructors 

1. The action of the School Committee in establishing a special 
aim for the Mechanic Arts High School has also imposed certain 
requirements as to the qualifications of the instructors. 

2. The instructors in charge of the shops should, as has been 
stated, be men of wide practical experience in order to prepare 
"non-commissioned officers of industry." They should thor- 
oughly understand their trade, both as to its practice and its 



Kind of Training 43 

related technical knowledge, as well as the organization and 
management of commercial shops. In addition, they should 
also have had executive and business experience in the special 
fields for which the school is to train its pupils. They should 
have good general schooling and their personal qualifications 
should be such as to promise the efficient performance of their 
work. In addition to their personal and shop equipment, they 
should understand the aim and organization of the school and, 
in a professional sense, should know how to teach. 

Shop instructors in the Mechanic Arts High School for the 
most part are well qualified to give the kind of instruction re- 
quired by the aim of the School Committee, although, as has 
already been pointed out, the school is not now taking ad- 
vantage of their practical experience. 

3. The teachers of related subjects should, to get the best results, 
have at least an elementary and practical experience in industry. 
This would include instructors in such lines as mathe- 
matics, drawing, and science. Their experience need not be as 
extensive or as varied as that of the shop teacher, but it should 
at least be sufficient to equip them to teach their subjects in 
such a way as to enable the pupil to understand and use such 
teaching, within the limits of the aim of the school, in accord- 
ance with the best practice in industry. 

Even the teachers of such subjects as English, civics, and 
economics should have sufficient contact with industrial activ- 
ities to give them an appreciation of the conditions and prob- 
lems of industry and at least a layman's knowledge of the more 
common machines and processes found in the shop. Their 
knowledge of industry should be such as to enable them to 
gather teaching material for their subjects from the world of 
work, and to make practical applications of the principles taught 
to the conditions and problems which the pupil as a citizen and 
a worker in industry is sure to encounter. 

4. A number of the present teachers of academic subjects have 
had no industrial contact whatever, although they possess ex- 
cellent preparation for the teaching of college preparatory sub- 
jects, and are, therefore, not qualified to give successfully the 
kind of training in related studies recommended in this report. 
Some of these teachers will doubtless be able to acquire the neces- 
sary industrial experience during their vacations. Others 



44 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

probably could not acquire it, but they could be, in all prob- 
ability, advantageously transferred to other schools. 

Equipment 

1. By establishing a special aim for this school, the commit- 
tee has, by implication at least, set up certain requirements as 
to the general facilities of the school including the character 
and amount of the equipment. 

A large part of the present equipment is admirably fitted for 
the best type of industrial work, if slightly rearranged and sup- 
plemented here and there by additional apparatus to increase 
the scope and variety. 

2. There is urgent need of more floor space for the shops. Over 
1,500 pupils are crowded into a building whose shops cannot 
properly accommodate more than about 800. Fortunately, 
however, more space can easily be found for shop uses by making 
alterations suggested on pages 64 and 84-85. On account of 
shops and laboratories a technical high school needs more space 
per pupil than does a general high school. While, for example, 
the space per pupil is greater in the Mechanic Arts High School 
than it is in the English High School, the shop floor space is less 
than that of the best industrial and trade schools and very much 
less than that of good commercial shops. 

3. This overcrowding appears to be due in part to a commend- 
able desire of the school administration to keep the cost per 
pupil down to a minimum. 1 This question of the per capita 
cost is discussed at length at another point. (See page 50.) 

4. Many of the machines are well suited to practical work. In 
many instances, however, they should be rearranged so as to 
give more space for practical work, and they should be supple- 
mented by other machines to increase the variety and scope of 
the instruction. At least two of the rooms now used for study 



1 "To enable the largest number of pupils to enjoy the advantages with the school, 
it is necessary that each division should contain the maximum number of which the 
shops and drawing rooms are equipped." — Cat. 190J/, p. 56. 

In Appendix I of this report is given a table taken from School Document No. 
12, p. 64, showing the cost of instruction from 1898-1904 to be less than that of 
either the English High School or the Public Latin School. In this connection the 
school report makes the following comment: "The impression that the school is 
still relatively expensive appears to prevail although that opinion rests upon no founda- 
tion in fact." 



Kind of Training 45 

rooms should be added to the space now used for shop purposes 
and the machines and tools so distributed as to give sufficient 
space for productive work. 

Contact with Industry 

The school must, in a variety of ways, make systematic contacts 
with industrial life, in order, as has been stated at various points 
in this report, to adjust pupils to the practical demands of in- 
dustry. It has also been shown that, on the whole, the course 
is academic and far removed from industrial and commercial 
life; that some of the teachers have never had any actual con- 
tact with industry; that the methods of instruction are those 
usually employed in schools dealing with general education and 
are not adapted to meet the specific demands of industrial oc- 
cupations; that some of the equipment is not of a commercial 
character; and that, for the most part, throughout the school 
there is an entire absence of industrial atmosphere. This isola- 
tion of the school from practical affairs is perhaps best shown by 
its failure to establish any kind of working relationships with 
the industries in and around Boston into which, according to 
the aim of the School Committee, its students are to be sent with 
a working appreciation of the problems and questions with which 
these industries are concerned. 

The lack of contact with industry is evidenced by such facts 
as the following: 

(a) There is no organized or systematic plan of placing boys 
during the vacations in lines of employment similar to those 
for which they are being trained. 

(b) There is failure to require experience of this kind as a 
part of the course of the school. 

(c) No recognition in the way of credit is given a pupil for 
industrial experience. 

(d) Visits to outside plants, when made at all, are only an 
incidental part of the instruction. There is no systematic, 
well organized plan of visitations. 

(e) The school makes little or no attempt to bring in from the 
outside an industrial atmosphere by securing demonstrators, 
salesmen, employees, or other men engaged in the practical 
affairs of industry to give lectures on industrial questions and 



46 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

shop problems as a part of the regular instruction of the school. 

(f) Trade publications are not used for instruction purposes 
to anything like the extent they should be. 

(g) There is no organization for the placing of pupils who 
graduate from the school or who leave before the end of the 
course. 

(h) The school has developed no system for following up 
students after they go into the industry. 

Each of these devices is necesssary as a means of vitalizing 
the work of the school and giving it that contact with practical 
affairs without which it cannot be efficient. 



HOW FAR DOES THE SCHOOL SUCCEED IN PLACING 
ITS PUPILS IN THE KIND OF INDUSTRIAL EM- 
PLOYMENT INTENDED BY THE AIM OF THE 
SCHOOL COMMITTEE? 

It has already been shown that it is doubtful if more than from 
25 per cent to 35 per cent of the pupils of the school go into 
industry on the business and directive side. (See page 24fL) 
At a later point in this report, in connection with the recom- 
mendations herein made, the absence of any organized plan for 
placing pupils who leave the school either before or after gradua- 
tion in appropriate employment in industry is pointed out and 
suggestions made as to how the school can best render this 
necessary service. (See page 59ff.) 



47 



VI 

CAN THE MECHANIC ARTS HIGH SCHOOL SERVE AS 
A PREPARATORY SCHOOL FOR THE ENGINEERING 
COLLEGE AND AT THE SAME TIME REALIZE THE 
AIM OF THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE? 

That the school successfully prepares boys both for industrial 
pursuits and for the engineering college, and that it should con- 
tinue to prepare for the engineering college, it has already been 
shown, is the opinion of the headmaster. 

The small proportion of pupils who actually enter productive 
industry either as skilled workmen or on the business and direct- 
ive side, demonstrates that in attempting to realize the first 
aim the school has not in the past been notably successful. 
Neither has it been conspicuously successful as compared with 
other Boston high schools, in preparing boys for the engineering 
college. The school and college records show that, on the whole, 
boys find their way to the engineering college from other Boston 
high schools at least as readily as they do from the Mechanic 
Arts High School. (See Appendix A.) 

During the past twelve years the Mechanic Arts High School 
has sent to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for 
example, an average of about twenty graduates a year as against 
seventeen from the English High School and twelve from other 
Boston high schools. 

The table given in the Appendix of this report shows, more- 
over, that the records of the graduates of the English High 
School and the other general high schools of Boston, made at 
the Institute of Technology during this period, are superior to 
those made by the graduates of the Mechanic Arts High School. 

It seems clearly evident that the school has not in the past 
been conspicuously successful in preparing boys both for in- 
dustry and the engineering college. 

The School Committee has defined the present aim of the 
school to be the preparation of boys for industrial careers. To 

48 



Mechanic Arts High School and the Engineering College 49 

realize this aim the course of study and the methods of instruc- 
tion, it has already been suggested and at a later point will be 
fully demonstrated, must radically differ from those now em- 
ployed in the Mechanic Arts High School or in any school which 
aims to prepare for the engineering college. 

If in the past the Mechanic Arts High School with its single 
course of study largely determined by the entrance requirements 
of the engineering college has been unable successfully to carry 
out this double aim, it is highly probable that, in the future, 
with a more highly specialized course of study directed away 
from the engineering college, it cannot hope to do so. 1 

It has been suggested that two separate courses be offered in 
order to meet this difficulty, one for the training of industrial 
cadets and the other for preparation for the engineering college. 
Even if separate courses were offered the two aims would directly 
conflict with each other. Attention would inevitably be given 
to one at the expense of the other. Owing to the radical differ- 
ence in courses of study and methods of instruction, more or 
less duplication of equipment, instructors, and general facilities 
for the work would be necessary. This would undoubtedly 
largely increase the per capita cost of instruction beyond that 
of other preparatory schools. There is every evidence, more- 
over, that just as good results can be secured by using the other 
Boston high schools for all preparatory work. 

In view of all the facts in the case there is every reason to 
believe that if the school should continue to offer preparation 
for the engineering college it must fail to achieve the purpose of 
the School Committee to make it a training school for indus- 
tries. 



1 The support for the Idea that the school should prepare boys for the engineering 
college comes from the contention that the way to the college should be kept open 
at the top to every boy. In this connection these facts should be noted: (1) Less 
than one in seven of those who enter ever go to the engineering college. (2) There is 
no proof that any measurable number of these fail to reach a decision until late in 
their course. (3) Those who do so fail can get the necessary preparation by being 
shunted to other Boston high schools after they have determined to fit for college. 
(4) The present plan requires all boys to take the preparatory course for the engineer- 
ing college whether they intend to go to college or not. 



VII 

IS THE PER CAPITA COST OF THE SCHOOL SUCH AS 
WILL REALIZE THE AIM OF THE SCHOOL 
COMMITTEE? 

1. The comparative cost of the different high schools maintained 
by the city is given in a table in Appendix I of this report. 
Attention is here called to the low cost of maintenance of the 
Mechanic Arts High School as compared with the cost of oper- 
ating the Girls' Trade School. The per capita cost of operating 
the Mechanic Arts High School is probably less than that of 
any special vocational school in the country and, it may be said 
in passing, furnishes one of the most conclusive proofs that it is 
a general high school. 

The low per capita cost noted above has very evidently been 
brought about by policies which have undoubtedly been well 
meant, but which have seriously interfered with the efficiency of 
the school. They have resulted in classes much too large for 
satisfactory work, and have led to congested conditions that 
seriously hamper its success. 

2. The small amount of money expended for stock has also been 
a factor in the low per capita cost of maintenance. In general, 
the cost for lumber, according to figures given by the head- 
master, is less than $3 per annum per capita for boys in the 
wood-working classes. A boy can hardly be trained for efficient 
work in industry on such a small allotment of stock. The 
alternative, as already suggested, is to spend more money for 
stock and make a commercial product to be utilized in the school 
system or otherwise. 

The recommendations made herein would undoubtedly in- 
crease the operating expenses to at least $100 per pupil, and 
even more according to the length of the school day and the 
size of classes. This type of education is expensive and if the 
Boston School Committee desires to have it, it must pay the 
cost. 

50 



Per Capita Cost of the School 51 

3. Causes of increased expenditure due to the recommendations 
of the report. A part of the increased cost would be due to ad- 
ditional expenditures for changes in the plant and equipment, but 
almost all of it would be directly chargeable to operation and 
would be due to such items as the following: 

(a) Increase in cost of instruction per pupil due to limiting the 
size of all classes to the number that can be effectively taught. 

(b) Increase in floor space per pupil necessary to carry out 
the shop work. 

(c) Increase per pupil in overhead and fixed charges of main- 
tenance, such as light, power, heat, depreciation in equipment 
and plant, etc. 

(d) Increase in the clerical and administrative force necessary 
to take care of the admission of pupils and the maintenance of a 
placement bureau. 

(e) A small but necessary appropriation for special lectures 
by experts in practical subjects. 

(f) Increase in the cost of material, which will probably be 
more than offset by the value of the finished product. 

(g) Increase in the length of the school day, thereby further 
increasing such items as light, power, heat, repairs, and service. 

It should be noted that in the estimates given below, while 
the cost per pupil per annum will be somewhat increased over 
the present cost, owing to the lengthening of the school day, the 
cost per pupil hour will not be proportionately increased. In 
other words, part of the increased cost will be due to the fact 
that the city, if these recommendations are adopted, will be 
buying more hours of training than heretofore. 

4. As has been pointed out elsewhere, the per capita cost of 
instruction at the Mechanic Arts High School is, and has been 
for a considerable number of years, about $88. The very per- 
tinent question arises as to what effect the recommendations 
herein made would have upon this cost. There are a number of 
considerations to be taken into account in making any estimate 
of the increase in expense due to the proposed changes and any 
statement on this point must, of necessity, be more or less ten- 
tative and conditional. 

It is proposed to reduce the attendance upon the school from 
1,500 to 1,200 pupils. Assuming that the total school at- 
tendance of the city remains stationary, it would be necessary 



52 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

for the School Committee to find accommodations for approx- 
imately 300 pupils in other Boston high schools. All of these 
pupils could readily be taken care of in the various suburban 
high schools. It might be necessary, under the circumstances, 
for the School Committee to require the attendance of certain 
pupils living in outlying districts upon the high schools of such 
districts. This would involve a change from the present policy 
which permits all children, wherever located, to attend the 
high school of their choice. 

In this connection, attention is called to the fact that at an 
early day the High School of Commerce will move into a new 
building leaving its present quarters available for use for high 
school purposes of any kind deemed advisable by the Board, 
thus affording accommodations for more pupils in the city of 
Boston proper, should this be found necessary. 

It is also well to point out here that, since the per capita expense 
at the Mechanic Arts High School is greater than at practically 
all the other Boston high schools, the transfer of pupils seeking 
either a general high school education or preparation for the 
engineering college, from the Mechanic Arts High School to 
other Boston high schools, would reduce the cost of instruction 
for such pupils and, to some extent, offset the increased cost of 
operation of the Mechanic Arts High School under the new plan. 

5. It is assumed in the figures which follow that the lengthen- 
ing of the present school day from six to seven gross hours and 
thereby to six net hours for instruction is to be accomplished 
without increasing the pay of teachers or the number of teachers 
on this account. This means, in other words, that the present 
corps of instructors would be expected to teach about one more 
period per day. 

It is well to point out in this connection that the total number 
of hours of instruction required from the teachers of the school 
will even under the recommendations herein proposed be much 
less than that now given by the teachers of the Boston Boys' 
Industrial School and the Boston Trade School for Girls. 

At the present time, an average of approximately thirty-four 
pupils to the class is being taught at an expense of $88 per pupil. 
If the classes were reduced to twenty-eight pupils, the number of 
teachers required to take care of the same enrollment would be 
increased about 17J^ per cent. This would raise the per capita 



Per Capita Cost of the School 53 

cost from $88 to $103.40. If the number of hours of instruction 
for each teacher were not increased with the lengthening of the 
school day herein proposed, there would also be necessary an 
addition of about 20 per cent to the teaching force in order to 
handle the same number of pupils. If we add 20 per cent of 
$103.40 there would be a new per capita cost of approximately 
$124. 

In like manner, assuming no increase in teaching force or 
salaries on account of the lengthening of the school day, the 
per capita cost would be about $114.40, if the classes were reduced 
to not more than twenty-four pupils. So, in the same way, 
should the classes be reduced to twenty pupils, the per capita 
cost would be about $125. 

It should be pointed out here that in the above estimates no 
allowance is made for a variable factor due to certain fixed 
charges, such as supervision, heat, light, printing, and clerical 
hire, the gross amount of which, and, therefore, the cost of which, 
would probably remain about the same as in the present school 
with its 1,500 pupils. A reduction of the total enrollment of 
the school to 1,200 would only slightly reduce these fixed charges 
and, therefore, slightly decrease the above estimates as to the 
expense per pupil of operating the school. 



VIII 

IS THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SCHOOL SUCH AS 

TO PROMISE A REALIZATION OF THE AIM OF 

THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE? 

1. The difference of opinion as to the aim of the school between 
the headmaster and the School Committee is taken up here 
with reluctance. Whatever may be said by way of criticism of 
the present work of the school it must be recognized that manual 
training throughout the country is undergoing a period of re- 
adjustment and that some of the criticism made against the 
school arises from this fact, and would be equally true of any 
manual training high school. It is also true that in any school 
situation there are inherent in the problem certain factors that 
are wholly beyond the control of the executive. In the light of 
these facts it is clear that the headmaster cannot be held answer- 
able for every adverse rinding made in this report. Neither 
should it be forgotten that for many years he has rendered to 
the city distinguished services of large value. In the adminis- 
tration of the Mechanic Arts High School he has shown himself 
to be a teacher of rare insight and an executive of unusual 
ability. Abundant credit should be given him for the tact, the 
skill, and the incessant labor which has been necessary to bring 
the school to its present point of development. 

2. The headmaster has been the storm center of the discussion 
that for the past ten years has been waged about the work of 
this institution. During that time there has been decided dis- 
agreement between him and the Boston School Committee as 
to the policy and purpose of the school; so much so that at times 
they have worked at cross purposes with each other. The evi- 
dence of this report goes to show that not only is the school fail- 
ing to carry out the aim of the School Committee, but that 
there continues to exist between the School Committee and the 
headmaster a wide difference of opinion as to what the school 
should be and do. 

54 



The Administration of the School 55 

This report is in no way concerned with the merits of this con- 
troversy. It is thoroughly appreciative of the honesty of opin- 
ion and purpose of all concerned, but it should be pointed out 
here that this difference of opinion has not, to say the least, 
contributed to the efficiency of the school and does not promise 
the best results in carrying out the aim of the Committee. 

3. The time has come for a clear and definite understanding 
between the School Committee and the headmaster which shall 
finally decide beyond the possibility of future misunderstanding, 
the policy of this school. It seems clear that at the earliest 
possible moment a friendly conference should be held by the 
School Committee with the headmaster for the purpose of 
reaching an understanding on such points as these: (a) Does the 
Boston School Committee still decide after reading this report 
that the Mechanic Arts High School shall hereafter no longer 
be a preparatory school for the technical college, but a finishing 
school training for important positions in industry? (b) Does 
the present School Committee accept as a general policy the 
recommendations of this report? And, if not, what modifica- 
tions of the same should be made? (c) Does the headmaster 
find himself able to accept the policy for the school resulting 
from the above decision of the School Board? (d) If not, what 
exceptions does he take to the decision of the School Committee? 
What is the final decision of the School Committee with reference 
to such exceptions? 

It is hardly necessary to suggest that these conferences should 
deal with broad matters of policy and not with small controver- 
sies and details of administration. In making any decisions 
based upon this report it should be recognized that the discus- 
sion and recommendations contained herein deal with the 
problem from the standpoint of principle and by way of sugges- 
tion. It is understood, of course, that the task of working out 
the details of any plan that might be adopted would have to be 
left to the headmaster and his assistants. 

4. Should the headmaster find himself unable for any reason 
to agree fully with the policy of the Committee as expressed in their 
final decision, he will doubtless be only too ready to ask, and 
the School Committee willing to grant his request, that he be 
assigned as headmaster of some other Boston high school, with 
whose work he finds himself in accord, in a way in keeping with 
the distinguished and devoted service he has rendered the city. 



RECOMMENDATIONS 



RECOMMENDATIONS 

Certain thorough-going changes must gradually be made in 
the methods of selecting pupils, in training them after being 
selected, in placing in employment those who receive the train- 
ing, and in following up during employment those so placed in 
order to test out the effectiveness of the selection, training, 
placement, and employment. 

The school is not prepared to make all the necessary changes at 
once and an opportunity should be given the teachers to study 
the situation. Justice to the boys who have entered the school 
on the present basis, moreover, requires that they should be 
allowed to finish undisturbed the course on which they have 
entered. It is, therefore, recommended that the classes now in 
school be allowed to graduate on the present basis and that no 
changes be put into effect until September, 1914, such changes 
to begin with the class of 1918. 

Because of the imminence of the next school year, we have 
undertaken to deal in some detail with the immediate changes 
to be made in the first year work. These changes are given in 
Appendix D of this report. 

The remaining changes which this report will recommend are 
discussed in more general form in Appendix B, time and exper- 
ience being required to work out the details of the later years. 
As the reorganization of the school develops, there will be plenty 
of opportunity to do this. 

1. Recommendations as to methods of finding the group to be 
trained. At the present time graduates of the grammar schools 
find their way from these schools to the various high schools of 
the city in a haphazard fashion. They go to such institutions 
as the Mechanic Arts High School, the High School of Commerce, 
or the Girls' School of Practical Arts, for a variety of more or 
less accidental reasons. A particular school is selected because 
it is near at hand, or is attended by friends, or is recommended 
to be good, or because the pupil has been advised to go to it. 
To some extent the vocational counselors in the grammar schools 

59 



60 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

and some principals are endeavoring to help in this important 
work of educational and vocational guidance. 

If Boston is to operate a number of special high schools hav- 
ing different aims and different courses of study it must set up 
the machinery necessary to secure from the elementary schools 
the proper product for the various high schools. To have the 
right kind of raw material to work on is just as necessary for a 
school as it is for a factory. 

To accomplish this purpose adequate means should be pro- 
vided for the educational direction as well as the vocational 
guidance of grammar school pupils. Such guidance should prop- 
erly begin with direction to the right kind of school of higher 
grade including, of course, the Industrial School for Boys, the 
Trade School for Girls, and the continuation schools, as well as 
the various high schools. Guidance should include not only 
placing in a high school, but also the transfer of those pupils 
who are found to be misplaced. 

As the first step in such a program the School Committee 
should set up a clear definition of the aim of each school, both 
general and special, in terms of the vocations, or the avenues to 
vocations, to which each leads. These definitions should then 
be legislated into the educational policy of the School Committee, 
subject to change as the necessity arises. 

The aim of each school having been defined there should be 
organized a committee on vocational guidance to serve as a 
clearing house on all matters that have to do with the guidance 
of grammar school pupils to the various other schools, their 
admission to such schools and their transfer from one to another. 

Such a committee might well be directed by one of the 
assistant superintendents of schools detailed for the purpose, 
and might consist of the vocational counselors or the principals 
of the various high schools, or both, and the vocational coun- 
selors or principals of the grammar schools. 

In order effectively to perform its work the committee on 
vocational guidance might well put into operation such plans 
and devices as those discussed in Appendix H of this report. 
In addition to these measures, and others commonly practised 
by vocational counselors, it is recommended that there be 
made an analysis of various occupations and their requirements, 
and the preparation offered by different schools; and that the 



Recommendations 61 

results be charted for use in the various grammar schools. 
Such an analysis has been made by the school department of 
Los Angeles, of the different occupations and the preparation 
for them offered by the various schools in that city. Attention 
is also called to the talks on various vocations given in the schools 
of Winnipeg by men outside the schools. These talks are printed 
for distribution to the pupils. 

An important responsibility of the guidance committee 
would be the transfer to other schools of those pupils who were 
found to be misfits. This would not only necessitate frequent 
conference between parents and teachers, but also careful ob- 
servation of the work of the pupil during the first few weeks in 
the school, both before and after his transfer. 

It should also be the duty of the committee to see that the 
pupil transferred from one school to another secured in the 
new school favorable entrance in regard to such matters as 
proper credit for work done, assistance in adjusting himself to 
his new environment, and a reasonable period of trial. 1 

2. Recommendations as to the training to be given. It has 
clearly been demonstrated that the Mechanic Arts High School 
is neither necessary nor desirable as a preparatory school for 
the engineering college. This report, therefore, recommends 
that the school give up any attempt to fit boys for such insti- 
tutions, and confine its training to the preparation of boys who, 
on graduating from the school, intend to go directly into industry 
on the business and directive side. 

To this end it is recommended that the present course of study 
be abolished year by year and that a new course be organized 
in accordance with the aim of the School Committee. 



1 While this report recommends that pupils who wish to fit for the engineering 
college be not admitted to the school, if they are admitted, they should be required 
to take for two years the same course as other pupils and at the end of that time be 
transferred to the English High School or other Boston high schools to complete 
their college preparation. In this way the interests of those boys who, after being 
admitted to the school wish to prepare for the engineering college as well as those 
who plan to go directly into industry, will be best served. 

If, in order to carry out this recommendation, it should be necessary to enlarge 
the facilities of the English High School, this can be accomplished with greater ease 
and at less cost than any other plan for accommodating those pupils who seek prep- 
aration for the engineering college. Some time ago a similar plan was proposed by 
the headmaster as a possible method for preparing boys for the Classical College in 
conjunction with the Mechanic Arts High School. (See report of the Mechanic 
Arts High School, 1901, pp. 23-24.) 



62 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

The immediate aim of the course should be to develop in the 
pupil an appreciation of the problems and quantities involved 
in manufacturing and the capacity to "size up" and deal in 
classroom, laboratory, and shop, with the kind of situations 
that present themselves in productive industry. 

As already noted the course should include instruction in 
English, mathematics, drafting, science, industrial history, 
applied economics, citizenship, business organization and prac- 
tice, shop organization and practice, and practical shop work in 
wood, metal, and power. All other subjects now in the course 
of study should be omitted. The subjects mentioned above are 
more fully discussed on pages 28 to 37 of this report, and in Ap- 
pendix B is given in more or less detail suggestions concerning 
the scope and character of the subject matter. It is recom- 
mended that the content of the various subjects be worked out 
along the lines suggested throughout the report. 

The course should be four years in length and, with the ex- 
ceptions noted below, the same work should be prescribed for 
every boy. In general the time should be about equally divided 
between practical shop work instruction in applied science, 
drawing, and subjects directly related to the shop work and 
instruction in the other and more general subjects of the course, 
one-third of the time being given to each. 

There should be at least six full hours of instruction in the 
school, not less than two of which should be given to shop work. 
It should be pointed out in this connection that a longer day 
with a corresponding increase of shop time would undoubtedly 
produce even better results. In the fourth year, a pupil inter- 
ested in some one industry common to Boston, might well be 
allowed to specialize in that industry and, wherever possible, 
give a part of his time to partial employment in that occupa- 
tion, which employment shall be credited in the school. 

The methods of instruction which this report recommends 
have already been discussed at some length on pages 37 to 42. 
Further suggestions as to method are given in Appendix C. 

3. Recommendations as to employment and vocational guid- 
ance. One of the most important responsibilities of the school 
is the placing in employment of its graduates and those who 
leave the school before completing the course. To market its 
product and do it properly is as much the business of a special 



Recommendations 63 

school as it is that of an industry. The only way in which the 
school can get any adequate measure of the efficiency of its 
training, moreover, is by the success in industry of the boys 
whom it sends out. This not only requires that pupils shall be 
properly trained, but that they shall also be assisted to advan- 
tageous employment. 

It is, therefore, recommended that there be organized within 
the school a bureau for the placing of pupils. This bureau 
might well be in charge of a vocational counselor employed 
for the purpose or of some member of the faculty who possessed 
special qualification for the work and who had been sufficiently 
relieved of his regular teaching to allow him to attend to his new 
duties. The director of the bureau should have at his disposal 
all the clerical assistance necessary and he should be further 
assisted in the discharge of his duties by a committee from the 
faculty acting mainly in an advisory capacity. From time to 
time he should also seek the assistance and advice of the general 
advisory board to the school. In this connection attention is 
called to the fact that the rules and regulations of the school 
committee for the Boston Trade School for Girls provides for 
a vocational assistant for each 150 pupils. 

It should be the business of the placement bureau to handle 
all business that has to do with the guidance and placement of 
boys on leaving the school. This would include such things, 
among others, as the following: 

(a) Keeping records of such matters as: 

The boy's school history and experience, including the 
data obtained at the time of entrance by the school from 
the vocational guidance committee in the grammar school. 

The economic conditions of the home. 

Health, eyesight, physical defects. 

Mechanical, executive, and business ability, so far as 
these can be determined. 

General characteristics. 

(b) Visits to the pupil's home. 

(c) Visits to his place of employment. 

(d) Conferences with the boy, with his parents, and with his 
employer. 

(e) Analysis and charting of various occupations, especially as 
to health requirements and also the reaction of the employment 
upon the pupil's health. 



64 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

(f) Records and information as to market conditions with re- 
spect to the kind of labor the school is endeavoring to market. 

(g) Advertising the school's product. 

(h) Enlisting the interest and co-operation of employers in 
placing boys. 

(i) Follow-up records of boys after they have entered the 
industry, in order to determine such things as: Increase in 
wage, conditions of employment, causes of failure, and what 
modifications, if any, appear to be necessary in the training 
given. These data are also important as guides for future 
placement. 

4. Recommendations as to equipment. This report cannot go 
into detail as to the alterations that should be made in the shop 
equipment, but some of the more important changes follow. 
In order that shops may properly serve the aim of the Committee 
much of the present duplicated equipment should be removed. 
The smaller lathes in the machine shops should be supplemented 
by heavier lathes, milling machines, drill presses, planers, and 
grinders. Many of the benches should be taken out ofthe wood- 
working shops in order to provide necessary working space. 
Forging should be carried on in close relation to the work of the 
machine shop. To do this some of the forges now in use should 
be disposed of and the space thus gained used for subsidiary 
machines. 

Every facility of the power plant in the school, including 
the engine room and the boiler room, should be used for prac- 
tice training in power and applied science. Additional power 
equipment, for experimental and demonstration purposes, in the 
form of gasoline engines, small steam engines, steam pumps, and 
generators, should be installed and more or less equipment of a 
commercial character should be added to the science labora- 
tories. A suitable shop should be furnished for printing and 
the present equipment greatly enlarged. There is ample room 
in the building for this purpose. 

Wherever possible a drafting room and a recitation room 
should be provided in close proximity to each shop in order 
more readily to effect a close correlation between the shop work 
and the related technical work. To gain the necessary room 
for this purpose space could be taken in the recent addition to 
the school building, now used almost entirely by academic 



Recommendations 65 

classes, for some of the science laboratories, and, if structural 
reasons do not prevent, for wood-working shops. 

5. Recommendations as to part-time instruction. 

(a) Attention is here called to the large possibilities that pre- 
sent themselves in training for industrial careers through part- 
time classses in which the employed pupil, by an arrangement 
similar to that now practised in many industrial schools, spends 
from ten to fifty per cent of his working time in the school. 
This plan would give him an excellent opportunity, while at 
work, to gain valuable practical experience in the various phases 
of business as applied to manufacturing as well as insight into 
shop processes. The experience thus gained, the school would 
supplement by classroom instruction in related subjects of the 
character discussed in the Appendix of this report. (Appendix 
B.) 

(b) All the arguments commonly advanced in support of the 
part-time school for trade workers apply here with even greater 
force. Such a plan would afford a means of utilizing the ex- 
pensive equipment of the school and the building to its fullest 
capacity, it being possible to use them, not only during regular 
school hours, but also during the time the regular school is not 
in session; it would hold in the school many boys who, for eco- 
nomic reasons, now drop out before completing the course; it 
would keep the school in touch with industry and bring to it an 
industrial atmosphere to a degree not otherwise obtainable; it 
would materially reduce the cost of training many pupils; and 
it would make possible training in certain lines, like the manu- 
facture of boots and shoes, which because of the character of 
the industry, might not otherwise be possible within the school. 

This part-time arrangement might be of either or both of two 
different kinds. Boys in the industry can be brought to the 
school for class instructions. Boys in the school could be 
received into the industry to get commercial experience. 

Doubtless many employers in and around Boston would be 
found ready and willing to co-operate with the school in a scheme 
of this kind. At the present time the Mechanic Arts High School 
carries on no part-time work of any description. This report 
recommends that at an early date, steps be taken to establish 
part-time work of the character here suggested. 



APPENDICES 



APPENDIX A 



THE MECHANIC ARTS HIGH SCHOOL AS A PREPARA- 
TORY SCHOOL FOR THE TECHNICAL COLLEGE 

It has been pointed out in this report that the Mechanic Arts 
High School has been used as a preparatory school for the engi- 
neering college on the theory that it was necessary or desirable 
as such. This theory is not borne out by the evidence. 

In the report of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 
for 1911 is given a table setting forth the records in that institu- 
tion made during the past twelve years by students who have 
received their preparatory training in the various high schools 
in and around Boston. This table follows: 

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 

Standing of Students in Certain Preparatory Schools 





Number 
Entering 


Per cent 
Graduat- 
ing 


Per cent of 

Failures. 

(This includes 

all who left 

in poor 
standing.) 


Standing of Students who 
graduated indicated by 
the deviation from the 
average on an arbi- 
trary scale; + means 
above the average and 
— below the average. 




During 
first 
year 


During 
whole 
course 


Boston Public Schools. . . 
A 
English High 


577 

200 
234 

108 

13 

22 

35 

143 

407 


53 

61 

45 

50 

69 
73 
71 
55 
61 


36 

28 
44 

38 

31 
23 
26 
35 
31 


+6 

+ 16 
—22 

+ 16 

+ 149 

+ 11 

+61 

+30 

—8 


+2 

+2 
—3 

+3 

+58 

+2 


Mechanic Arts High. . . 

B 
Brighton High. . . 9 ' 
Charlestown High 8 
Dorchester High. .27 
East Boston High. 15 > 

Roxbury High 40 

South Boston High 4 
W. Roxbury High 5 t 

C 
Girls' High 


Latin (Boys) 


C 


+ 12 


B and C 


+9 


Suburban Schools 


—3 



69 



70 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School. 

From an examination of this table it appears that the best 
preparatory school for the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 
nology is the Girls' Latin School. The others graded in order 
of merit from this standpoint are: The Boys' Latin School, the 
English High School, the General High Schools, and the Mechanic 
Arts High School. 

It is apparent from these figures that the English High School 
is preparing very nearly as many boys for the Institute of Tech- 
nology as is the Mechanic Arts High School, and that it is doing 
it more effectively. The pertinent question arises: Why 
duplicate its work? 

It is also evident from this table that all the other general 
high schools of Boston are offering adequate preparation for the 
Institute of Technology. If the Mechanic Arts High School 
were to discontinue its preparatory course for the engineering 
college it would be comparatively easy for a boy to obtain the 
necessary preparation elsewhere. Under these conditions it 
would seem as if the burden of proof rests upon the Mechanic 
Arts High School to show that it is either necessary or desir- 
able for it to offer preparation for the Massachusetts Institute 
of Technology or any other engineering school. 

It must be admitted that the table referred to above is based 
upon the records made in one institution only and that it would 
be unfair to draw hard and fast conclusions from these data. 
Nevertheless, it is significant as indicating that the manual 
training high schools and the technical high schools have not 
as yet demonstrated any superiority over the regular high school 
in preparing boys for the engineering college. 

This position is further supported by the dean of the Engineer- 
ing School at Tufts College and ex-President Hamilton of Tufts 
College, who express themselves as being satisfied with the kind 
of preparation offered by the general high school, and who also 
say that training in shop work is practically valueless as a prep- 
aration for the engineering college unless such work is closely 
correlated with physics, mathematics, and drawing. 

Based upon considerable discussion with the presidents and 
members of the faculties of various engineering colleges, this 
report offers an explanation of why the general high school is 
more successful as a preparatory school for the engineering 
college than are schools like the Mechanic Arts High School. 



Appendix A 71 

It is admitted that this explanation only represents the opin- 
ion of the writer and is not based upon sufficient evidence to be 
conclusive. 

Taking the engineering colleges of the country as a whole, it 
may be said without fear of successful contradiction that they 
are seeking the student with the same type of mind as is the 
college of liberal arts. Both institutions are looking for the 
man who has the capacity to deal with abstractions on paper. 

The only difference in the kind of work done by these two 
institutions is in the subject matter studied. Both are training 
the students to think, on the whole, in abstractions; at the engi- 
neering college, in the field of physical phenomena, at the college 
of liberal arts, in the field of social and mental phenomena. 
The subject matter with which each deals is different, but the 
process is the same, and the kind of mind required to carry on 
the process successfully in both cases is the same. It is true 
that the engineering college expects the graduate to deal with 
practical problems, but it holds that, in order to do this, he must 
have the capacity to master in the school as organized knowledge 
the theory lying back of such problems. 

The engineering school, therefore, lays its emphasis upon the 
two tasks of selecting the man with the power to do its work and 
of teaching the theory underlying engineering problems. 

Abundant evidence that the engineering college wants the 
same type of mind as the college of liberal arts is found in the 
fact that in general, with the exception of Latin and Greek, both 
institutions set up essentially the same kind of entrance require- 
ments; they use the same methods of testing applicants for 
admission and the same methods of appraising the results of 
the examination; they give little or no credit to any form of prac- 
tical experience and, on the whole, the candidates who can suc- 
cessfully meet the entrance requirements of one institution can 
with equal success meet those of the other. Further evidence 
is also found in the fact that both the engineering colleges and 
the classical colleges accept for entrance the examination tests of 
certain college entrance boards. 

When a city like Boston adopts the policy of special high 
schools and establishes a system of free choice of schools by pupils, 
most of those children having, in the main, the greatest interest 
in books and the largest capacity to deal with abstractions, will 



72 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

find their way to such high schools as the Latin schools, and to 
certain courses, at least, in the English High School. On the 
other hand, most of those pupils who are " concrete" — rather 
than "abstract-minded," and who gain knowledge most ef- 
fectively when coupled with manual work, will find their way 
to such schools as the High School of Practical Arts, the Girls' 
Trade School, the High School of Commerce, and the Mechanic 
Arts High School. 

An examination of the grammar school records of pupils who 
enter these schools shows this to be true. The headmaster of 
the Mechanic Arts High School also appears to concur in this 
opinion. 1 

Furthermore, all the time given to shop work in the Mechanic 
Arts High School not only receives practically no recognition 
from the Engineering School, but represents time taken away 
from the academic studies which the School does require and 
upon which it tests the candidate for admission. The school 
day is practically the same length at the Mechanic Arts High 
School and at other Boston high schools, like the English High 
School. About one-third the time at the Mechanic Arts is given 
to shop work. This means that the pupils of the school have 
only about two-thirds of the time for classroom instruction in 
studies preparatory to the Engineering School which the pupils 
of other Boston high schools receive. 

Under these circumstances, it is not strange to find a larger 
proportion of students from the other Boston high schools than 
from the Mechanic Arts High School making successful records 
in the Engineering School. This is in no sense a reflection 
upon the many creditable students from the Mechanic Arts 
High School who have graduated from the engineering college, 
nor upon the character of the instruction offered in the Mechanic 
Arts High School, but is rather an explanation of why under the 
present standards set up by the Engineering School, at least, 
it is erroneous to assume that such an institution as the Mechanic 
Arts High School is needed to prepare boys for it. 



1 "The boy best adapted to meet the demands of the Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology has been rather more likely to go to other schools, particularly the Eng- 
lish High, than to the Mechanic Arts High School." — Replies to questionaire by the 
headmaster, Appendix E. 



Appendix B 73 

APPENDIX B 

SUGGESTIONS CONCERNING THE COURSE OF STUDY 

The following lists of topics are intended to be suggestive 
merely. They indicate the direction in which the different sub- 
jects to be taught should be developed. No attempt is made to 
name the various topics in order of their importance or with 
reference to the relative time to be given to each. 

1. Business practice. The pupil should be trained in the 
elementary principles of business procedure. In order to meet 
immediate and future demands on the business side of his calling, 
he should be taught in the school such things, among many 
others, as the following: 

How to draw a check. 

The meaning of debit and credit. 

How to make a bank deposit. 

How to file letters. 

How to write telegrams. 

How to handle business over the telephone. 

How to draw notes and bills. 

How to draw specifications and bids. 

Office rules and regulations. 

Office organization. 

2. Business organization. When the boy enters industrial 
life he needs to be equipped with an elementary knowledge of 
how business deals with questions of its own organization. This 
equipment might be represented by many such things as: 

The organization of a company. 

The issuing of stocks and bonds. 

The borrowing of money and issuing of credit by banks or 
manufacturers. 

The drawing of contracts. 

The organization of the business force from the board of 
dirctors to the office force, including such questions as the 
proper assignment of powers and the distribution of responsi- 
bility. 

Inspecting, auditing, and accounting. 

Salesmanship, including the organization and direction of 
the selling force. 

The campaign for foreign markets. 



74 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

3. Applied economics. On leaving the school the boy is 
going out into industry where he will be brought in close contact 
with the economics of production. He, therefore, needs an 
elementary knowledge of applied economics such as might be 
represented by many such things as: 

Accidents in industry. 
Factory regulation for Massachusetts. 
Employers' Liability and Workmen's Compensation. 
The history, status, and purpose of trade unions. 
Equitable relations between capital and labor. 
The health of the worker. 
The minimum wage. 
The I. W. W. movement. 
Co-operation and profit sharing. 
Raw materials, wages, and credit. 
Laws of supply and demand. 
Sources of raw material. 
Marketing of products. 

The selection and training of workers and social welfare 
work in industry. 

4. Industrial and general history. Every young man facing 
life needs to understand the significant events of the past that 
have led to our own age. The best thought of our day has come 
to recognize that this knowledge can best be given to him, not 
through the meaningless recital of the wars and amours of kings, 
but through the study of events as the result of deep-seated 
economic causes, out of which all social and political changes 
have evolved. The history taught in the school, even when it 
deals with the remote past, should have a distinct economic 
bias. It might be said in passiug that this method of approach 
in the teaching of history is approved to-day, as being the sound- 
est and most effective. 

It is especially necessary that the intelligent young man 
entering upon an industrial career, being concerned, as he will 
be, with the wider phases of its economic and industrial activ- 
ities, should have as a background a thorough understanding 
and appreciation of the great economic movements of our his- 
tory, from which have resulted our present commercial and 
industrial organizations and practices. 

In addition to the general history above described, he should 
know such special aspects of history as the following : 



Appendix B 75 

The history of industry in New England. 
The history, causes, and effects of specialization in industry. 
The history of the evolution of industry. 
The history, status, and purpose of trade unionism. 
The history of the changing ethical basis and relationship 
of capital and labor. 

5. Shop organization. Since the " non-commissioned officer" 
is to deal in one capacity or another with the problems of the 
commercial shop, he needs training in shop organization. In- 
struction of this kind should be given in the classroom through 
text-book study, by study of the school plant, through lectures 
by experts from outside shops, and by visitation and special 
study, under direction, of outside plants. This training should 
include the study of such things as the following: 

The purchase of raw materials and equipment. 

Local markets for the purchase of raw material and the 
distribution of the finished product. 

The selection and arrangement of equipment. 

The adaptation of plant. 

The selection and use of power. 

The routing of materials through shops. 

The organization of the stock room and the tool room. 

Practical methods of selecting, training, and managing 
workers. 

Methods of safeguarding against accidents. 

Shop sanitation, light, and hygiene. 

Scientific management, its field and its limitations. 

6. Citizenship. Both as a future citizen and a prospective 
industrial worker, the pupil should have an elementary practical 
knowledge as contrasted with an academic knowledge of the 
problems involved in civic affairs with which his life and work 
are certain to be connected. The following are illustrative of 
the many things he should be taught: 

The levying and collecting of taxes. 

Factory regulations and labor laws. 

How a city conducts its business so as to safeguard against 
contagious diseases, polluted water supply, contaminated food, 
unwholesome milk, fire, sewage, crime, and accidents. 

How a city uses the contributions of science to promote 
the well-being of the citizen. 

How to vote. 

Responsibility of the citizen for the welfare of his neighbor. 



76 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

How the city deals with such problems as the following: 
electing its officers ; making and enforcing laws ; collecting taxes ; 
expending revenues; safe-guarding life, limb, property, and 
morals. 

How the state organizes itself to accomplish the above 
mentioned purposes. 

How the national government deals with such problems as 
the following: conservation of physical and human resources; 
immigration; the securing of good servants; securing of revenue. 

7. Science. Success in modern industry requires a working 
knowledge of the use of science, particularly physics, chemistry, 
and electricity as a branch of physics, in their application to 
such things as: 

Strength and properties of material; design, construction, and 
operation of tools, machines, and engines; the generation, dis- 
tribution, and consumption of power; the construction, sanita- 
tion, ventilation, and lighting of buildings; the manufacture of 
special products; the utilization of by-products and waste; 
modern means of transportation and communication; the 
properties, production, and use of fuels like coal, oil, and gas; 
the manufacture, distribution, and consumption of light; the 
properties; production and use of building material like cement, 
concrete, tiling, stucco, brick, and structural steel. 

To meet this need the Mechanic Arts High School should give 
a four-year course of instruction. The first year should deal in 
general with simple mechanics and the properties of materials; 
the second year in general with the development and applica- 
tion of heat, light, and power, including steam, electricity, and 
gas; the third year in general should give instruction in industrial 
chemistry and the strength of materials. The fourth year's 
work should aim to unify and organize the more practical ex- 
perience of the previous years. It should also give more ad- 
vanced instruction of an intensive and quantitative character 
in mechanics, industrial chemistry, and power, and should equip 
the student with an understanding of the theory and law lying 
back of the physical and chemical phenomena encountered in his 
previous study. 

8. Mathematics. This course should be a finishing course and 
should aim to give the pupil a command of those parts of the 
subject he will need as a working tool in his business and as a part 
of his equipment to meet opportunities for promotion and the 



Appendix B 77 

changing requirements of industry. He should have the power 
to use mathematics in its application to such questions in in- 
dustry as the following: 

How to figure costs of raw materials, transportation, fuel, 
wages, power, waste, advertising, selling, collections, insurance, 
depreciation, taxes, miscellaneous losses, profits, dividends and 
interest, fuel values, horse power and efficiency of engines and 
machines, repairs and construction; how to solve trade problems 
involving such things as indexing, change gears, speeds, and feeds, 
taper turning, belting, shafting, speed indicators, electrical line 
losses, heating surfaces, indicator cards; how to take off quan- 
tities from plans and specifications; how to figure the strength 
of building materials; how to keep such records as timebook, 
stockroom account, payroll, and simple office accounts; how to 
use tables of all kinds dealing with logarithms, strength of 
materials, square root, interest; how to use other sources of 
mathematical information in handbooks, catalogues, order and 
discount sheets; the proper use and interpretation of graphs and 
diagrams; the use of mathematical instruments such as slide 
rule and planimeter; the applications of mathematics to the 
mechanics of machine design and building construction. 

The instruction in mathematics referred to above might well 
cover the first three years of the course. This should be followed 
by a course which aims to organize and systematize the applied 
mathematics with which the pupil during the preceding years 
has been dealing and to give him some insight into mathematics 
as an exact science. Throughout the entire year, the work in 
mathematics should be intimately related to the practical work 
of the shops. 

It is expected that this instruction would involve the teach- 
ing of such mathematical methods and concepts as the follow- 
ing: a review of such arithmetical processes as decimals, frac- 
tions, square root, percentage, etc.; the mensuration and con- 
struction of plane figures; the fundamental algebraic processes; 
the meaning and manipulation of formulas, linear and quad- 
ratic equations, exponents and roots, rates and proportion, the 
recognition of geometrical figures, similar plane figures and 
similar solids. 

No attempt is here made to lay out the work by years, as the 
order in which the different topics should be taken up depends 



78 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

more upon the shop, the engine room, and the laboratory work 
than it does upon the mathematical sequence of such topics. 
In general, the instruction of the first year might well throw the 
emphasis on the arithmetical phases of the work, in the second 
year on the algebraic, and in the third year on the geometrical. 
No hard and fast line, however, should be drawn between the 
instruction of the separate years. 

9. Drawing. A graduate of the Mechanic Arts High School 
will not usually be a professional draftsman. His use of draw- 
ing will for the most part be that of the intelligent consumer 
rather than the designer or the producer of finished working 
drawings. On the other hand he must in addition be able to 
use drawing as a tool in the accomplishment of practical work 
and as a means of representing his ideas in a clear and accurate 
way. The knowledge he requires might be represented by many 
such things as these: 

Ability to make free hand sketches. 

Ability to draw to scale. 

The making and tracing of blue prints. 

Reading and checking blue prints and taking off quanti- 
ties. 

Making drawings from specifications and specifications 
from drawings. 

In order to be able to deal with the architect, the engineer, 
and other technical experts on an intelligent footing, he should 
understand in what way drawing is a factor in the shop, in build- 
ing construction, and in technical work. To this end he should 
have practice in the interpretation of blue prints in the shop and 
in outside construction work. He should also be able to under- 
stand erecting erecting-plans for machines and engines and for 
the installation of heating plants and power equipment. 

10. Practical shop work. It would be impossible to give shop 
experience in very many of the different lines of industry carried 
on in Boston and vicinity. It will, therefore, be necessary to 
choose a few lines of work having well standardized practice 
and well established systems of organization, which at the same 
time will afford the best opportunity to teach the pupil, so far 
as the limitations of the school will permit, the way in which mod- 
ern manufacturing is carried on, and more important still will give 
an experience in material and activities common to all pro- 
ductive industry. 



Appendix B 79 

The three lines which best meet these conditions are wood, 
metal, and the electrical industries including the application of 
power. This report has, therefore, recommended that the shop 
work of the first year deal with carpentry, the second with pat- 
ternmaking, the third with machine shop practice. The second 
year's service is given to the applications of power to industry. 
The fourth year is reserved for elective work of a more intensive 
character in some one of the above mentioned subjects. The 
outline for shop work just suggested is recommended in view of 
the present conditions. If the school were being started as a new 
venture modifications like the following would be strongly urged : 

(a) Forging is only a small phase of the metal working busi- 
ness and is seldom encountered particularly in New England as 
a separately organized industry. Less time should probably be 
given to it as a subordinate and more or less incidental part of 
the machine shop training. The time, space, and money thus 
gained could be devoted to practical instruction in foundry 
work. It is fair to point out here that the forging now given in 
the schools is unusually well taught. The equipment is in 
general excellent. These facts, together with the large expense 
of making pronounced changes in this department, make it 
advisable to recommend the continuance of this course with a 
full recognition at the same time of the ultimate need of reor- 
ganizing the work in accordance with the above suggestions as 
soon as the resources of the school will permit. 

(b) Instruction in the electrical industries including power 
should ultimately not be given merely as a part of the course 
in science which seems necessary at the present time, but should 
be placed as far as possible on the same practical basis as instruc- 
tion in other shop work and be given an equal amount of time. 

Following the practice of the High School of Commerce, pro- 
vision should be made whereby the pupil may spend his summer 
vacations at some line of work in productive industry. For the 
satisfactory performance of this work credit should be given by 
the school. 

11. English. The pupil need not be given college prepara- 
tory English nor should he be trained on the theory that he is to 
be primarily a debater, a public speaker, or a professional writer. 
He should study English from two points of view, (1) that of 
appreciation, (2) that of use. 

The English of appreciation should aim to develop in the 
pupil a love of good reading. The instruction should take the 



80 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

pupil where it finds him and endeavor to train him to appre- 
ciate good books that are within his ability to understand. It 
should give him a reading habit for such publications as : 

Good elementary books on social economic and industrial 
questions. 

Standard magazines. 

Those things in past literature which appeal to him as an 
adolescent, together with the best writings of our own day, such 
as the following: Poe's Tales and Poems, Kipling's Tales and 
Poems, Stevenson's Tales, Franklin's Autobiography, Cooper's 
Mohicans, Portor's Captains of Industry, Scott's Quentin Dur- 
ward, Ivanhoe, and other Border Tales, Kingsley's Westward 
Ho, Hyde's Speaker, Selections from Les Miserables, Dickens's 
Tales of Two Cities, Tennyson's Idylls, Wister's U. S. Grant, 
Merchant of Venice, Hawthorne's House of the Seven Gables, 
stories and novels of an historical character, biographies of 
statesmen, successful generals, captains of industry and busi- 
ness, and other men of affairs. 

The English for use should prepare the pupil to employ his 
mother tongue effectively as a means of expression both as a 
citizen and prospective man of affairs on the one hand and as a 
worker and prospective executive in industry on the other. 
Here the habit and power of clear, concise, and forcible oral 
and written presentation of thought should be the aim. This 
requires instruction and practice in how to collect, organize, and 
present information in both oral and written form. It involves 
many such things as the reading and study of business and 
trade journals, trade union publications, books of reference of 
various kinds, the collecting and use of first hand knowledge 
gained by personal investigation and experience, the study 
of the best examples of modern day speech and writing as il- 
lustrated by such publications as the World's Work, the Out- 
look, the Literary Digest, the Review of Reviews, and by the 
public addresses and popular writings of President Wilson, of 
ex-President Eliot of Harvard, and other men prominent in 
public life. Carefully prepared class talks should be required 
from the pupils and class, interclass, and inter-scholastic debates 
as well as writing for the school paper should be encouraged. 
The present excellent instruction in English now being given in 
the school should be extended along these lines, a thing readily 
accomplished with the present teaching staff when the school 
ceases to fit for college. 



Appendix C 81 

Perhaps more important still is the need of business English. 
Every pupil should be brought into contact with the best busi- 
ness English as used by business men in magazines, corres- 
pondence, and talks and in such documents as the United 
States Consular Reports. He should have abundant practice in 
the repeated writings of all sorts of business composition, such 
as letters, specifications, reports on special subjects in indus- 
tries, reports on local industries, advertisements, instruction 
sheets and notices, contracts and agreements, the spelling and 
use of technical terms employed in productive industry, cata- 
logues, remittances, applications for positions, market reports, 
news letters to trade publications, exposition of manufacturing 
processes, and circular letters. 

Among the subjects upon which written papers might be 
required from time to time are such as the following: 

Standard methods of doing certain types of work. 

Construction and operation of machines. 

The history and use of tools. 

Sources and uses of materials. 

Reports on shop jobs and laboratory experiments. 

The layout of shop work organization. 

The routing of jobs. 

Recent improvements in machine construction. 

"Shop kinks." 

"Tricks of the trade." 

Problems of the engineer. 

Marketing the output of the school. 

How a central power station is operated. 

Stock systems. 

How to avoid shop accidents. 

Reviews of articles in industrial publications. 

Papers on general topics of interest. 



APPENDIX C 

SUGGESTIONS CONCERNING METHODS OF INSTRUC- 
TION 

In approaching a new subject for the first time, the shop 
should be made the point of departure wherever possible. How 
this can be done it is impossible to state in detail within the 



82 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School. 

limits of this report. An example of how industrial accidents 
as a topic of economics might be studied, for instance, will il- 
lustrate the method which in general should be used in the 
classroom. In taking up this subject for the first time, the 
teacher of economics might well ask the shop instructor to give 
a lecture on some of the causes of accidents in the shop, includ- 
ing instruction as to the danger points in machines and how to 
safeguard against them, followed by some consideration of the 
various devices for this purpose now on the market. This 
should be followed by visitation to outside plants and classroom 
study covering among others, such topics as these: 

1. Typical accidents occurring in industrial plants. 

2. State factory regulations concerning accidents. 

3. Comparative importance of this subject before steam and 
invention brought the factory system. 

4. History of accidents as a phase of industrial life during 
the past 100 years, beginning with the fellow servant doctrine 
and including the doctrines of assumed risk, employers' liabil- 
ity, workingmen's compensation, and old age pensions. 

Similarly, the classroom instruction in practically all the 
subjects in the course of study, with the possible exception of 
certain instruction in citizenship, should, wherever possible, 
begin with the activities of the shops and lead out into the prac- 
tical affairs of industry with which the boy on leaving the school 
will be concerned. This requires not only frequent and regular 
conference between shop and classroom instructors, but it also 
requires classroom teachers who have had some contact with 
industry. 



APPENDIX D 

SUGGESTIONS AS TO IMMEDIATE CHANGES IN THE 

SCHOOL 

1. Immediate changes in the course of study as already sug- 
gested should be confined to the first year class and should be 
put into effect before the first of September of the current year. 
Previous to that time a committee from the faculty should 
carefully study the problem to determine what changes are 
possible and to make all needed preparation. 



Appendix D 83 

As a part of such preparation the guidance committee else- 
where recommended in this report should be organized before 
the close of the present school year to aid in the proper selection 
of pupils to be admitted in September. If this should not 
prove feasible a temporary committee should be appointed from 
the faculty for this purpose. 

2. Organization. The present scheme of faculty organiza- 
tion in the school is the usual departmental organization found 
in most high schools, there being one head teacher for each 
general subject, such as history, English, mathematics, drawing, 
forging, and patternmaking, who is in a way responsible for 
the teaching of his special subject in all the years of the course. 
Every experience goes to show that this plan, unless accompanied 
by other and special groupings of teachers, tends to emphasize 
and isolate each special subject at the expense of other subjects 
and to prevent that close correlation between the various sub- 
jects of the course which is necessary to effective teaching even 
in the ordinary high school. 

The scheme of training recommended by this report requires 
an intimate working connection between the shops and the 
instruction of the classrooms in practically every subject. It 
is absolutely necessary that the school develop some method of 
administering the course of study which will organize the mem- 
bers of the faculty in such ways as to make each subject of the 
largest possible advantage in the teaching of every other. Just 
what device or devices will be most effective in accomplishing 
this only the experience of the school itself can answer. 

If these recommendations are to be carried out the entering 
class of 1914 must be smaller than heretofore. Whatever may be 
the actual number which might be admitted, the total of the 
school, particularly of the class of 1918, should not be per- 
mitted to be so large as to interfere with the efficiency of the 
instruction. 

This report does not believe that even with the alterations 
here proposed on page 181 more than 1,200 pupils can be ac- 
commodated in the building with the course of training herein 
suggested. This probably means that not many more than 
400 pupils should be admitted as freshmen in the coming Sep- 
tember. The writer desires to go on record as saying that, with 
the present floor space available even with the changes herein 



84 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

proposed, not more than 1000 pupils should be accommodated 
in the school. 

Undoubtedly better results would be gained if the present 
average enrollment of classes be reduced from thirty-four to a 
maximum of twenty-four. This may mean an increase in the 
per capita cost of the school which may not be regarded as 
advisable at the present time. All experience would show that 
not more than twenty can be taught to the best advantage by 
the usual instructor. In any event the enrollment of any given 
class, beginning with the class of 1918, should not under any 
circumstances be greater than twenty-eight and the school 
authorities should begin at once to plan for a pronounced reduc- 
tion in the size of classes to follow. 

3. Equipment. No attempt will be made in this report to 
deal with the changes and additions in equipment or alterations 
in building which would be necessary to carry out the work of 
the second, third, and fourth years, as herein recommended. It 
must, of course, be understood that even the suggestions regard- 
ing the changes and additions to be made before the first of Sep- 
tember, 1914, are not offered in any sense as absolute, but merely 
in a tentative way as affording a feasible working plan. 

It is assumed that not more than 1200 pupils will be accom- 
modated in the building. This probably means that, taking 
into consideration those returning in the second, third, and 
fourth years, not more than fifteen sections of freshmen will be 
enrolled, these sections to contain not more than twenty-eight 
pupils each. On the basis of those assumptions, it is believed 
that the following changes in the building and equipment are 
necessary to accommodate the class of 1918 taking the new 
course of study outlined on pages 30 to 32 in this report. 

1. In order to make laboratories for elementary science, the 
large rooms (39-49-59) on the third, fourth, and fifth floors 
should be employed. 

2. Remove some of the lathes from the turning shops. 

3. Remove some of the benches from the wood-working shops. 

4. Remove some of the tables from the drawing rooms. 

5. Distribute some of these lathes, benches, and tables among 
the other shops, laboratories, and drawing rooms. 

6. Furnish each woodworking shop with such machines and 
appliances as: two or three drawing tables and woodturning 
lathes, a circular saw, band saw, surface planer, and joiner. At 



Appendix E 85 

least one of the rooms should be provided with a mortising 
machine, straight moulder, boring machine, and a steam box for 
bending wood. 

7. Equip each elementary science laboratory with the ap- 
paratus and facilities necessary to teach simple mechanics and 
the elementary properties of materials. There should be also 
some commercial apparatus illustrating the industrial applica- 
tion of the principles taught. Each laboratory should have 
several long tables, containing four to six sinks each. The 
benches from the woodworking rooms would make good 
individual tables. 

4. The cost of changes in equipment. 

The following is a tentative estimate of the probable cost of 
the changes in equipment for the first year's work recommended 
above. 

No structural changes. 

Plumbing in large room A, to be used as machine shop, and in 

39 and 40 $300.00 

72 Science tables at $25 1,800.00 

2 Lecture tables at $100 200.00 

12 Wood- working machines with motors at an average of $300. 3,600.00 

Apparatus for science laboratories 1,500.00 

Labor of removing amphitheatre and desks from A 39, 49, and 

59 300 00 

Labor of installing machines 200. .00 

Shafting, pulleys, etc 200.00 

$8,100.00 
Allow for errors in above 1,900.00 



$10,000.00 



APPENDIX E 

ANSWERS OF THE HEADMASTER TO THE QUESTION- 
AIRE WITHIN THE STUDY* 

July 10, 1912. 
I 

Kind of a boy with which the Mechanic Arts High School deals? 
Since September, 1907, practically all boys who have applied 
for admission to the Mechanic Arts High School have been 

* For full list of questions submitted in this study to the headmaster which are 
answered below, see Appendix L. 



86 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

admitted. From 1902 to 1907 inclusive, a considerable num- 
ber were refused on account of lack of accommodations, but 
for no other reason.) In September, 1908, all applicants were 
received, but about one-half of the first year class was pro- 
vided for in the Rice School when it was transferred to the 
new building. (Applicants were received on the basis of general 
record for scholarship (not conduct) in the grammar school), 
but consideration was given in special cases to the mark for 
sloyd and arithmetic on the ground that boys notably weak in 
these subjects were less likely to succeed in the Mechanic Arts 
High School even if their general record was good, and, on the 
other hand, boys exceptionally strong in these subjects were 
likely to profit by the work of the school although weak in 
English, geography, or history. 

After full discussion, the Committee on Manual Training of 
the School Board, unanimously decided that a selection on the 
basis of merit, as determined by the grammar school record, 
was the only defensible plan. At that time the pressure for 
admission was very strong and parents were naturally ready to 
criticise harshly any action of officials that could be attributed 
to personal bias or favoritism. It was recognized that the 
grammar school record was an imperfect test of fitness, but it 
was believed to be the best then available. As the decision 
touching from three to six hundred boys had to be made in a 
single day, it was obviously impossible to obtain and consider 
adequately the data suggested by 3 f, 1, 2, 3, 4, or to conduct 
interviews with parents. Moreover, the decision of any person, 
or persons, however wise and conscientious, based upon such 
data would have been sharply challenged in many cases. 
Equally open to attack would have been a selection by lot, for 
the parents of boys who had made good records in the grammar 
school believed that their sons had established a right to attend 
the school of their choice. 

I have not recognized in my boys the characteristic differ- 
ences between concrete and practical on the one hand and 
abstract and bookish on the other, implied by many of your 
questions. Every large group of applicants for admission to 
the Boston high schools contains a very small number who 
clearly belong to one or the other of these classes, but the great 
mass of boys who do tolerably well any form of shop work that 



Appendix E 87 

requires a fair measure of concentrated attention, foresight, 
judgment, and perseverance do equally well the usual academic 
subjects. The exceptionally capable boys excel to about the 
same degree in both the academic and mechanic department, 
and the very weak boys are equally unsuccessful in all branches. 
It is not improbable that there is a larger percentage of the 
concrete variety among graduates of the grammar schools who 
do not seek the high schools. I have no reason to think that 
there is a marked difference in type between the boys who enter 
the English High School and those who come to the Mechanic 
Arts High School, except that the latter have some taste for 
mechanical training or a conviction that such training will lead 
to agreeable and profitable employment. The boys who enter 
the Mechanic Arts High School doubtless incline somewhat to 
the concrete variety. This is natural and desirable. It is 
probable also that a smaller percentage of boys deemed excep- 
tionally capable in the elementary school and a larger percentage 
of weak boys come to this school. 

The boy best adapted to meet the demands of the Massachu- 
setts Institute of Technology has been rather more likely to go 
to other schools, particularly the English High, than to the 
Mechanic Arts High School. Many boys of moderate ability 
have been sent to this school by parents who hoped that they 
would develop capacity and ambition for the training of a higher 
technical school. The combined activities of the classrooms, 
shops, and drawing rooms have stimulated them to greater 
exertion than they had been accustomed to make in the ele- 
mentary school and the good teaching has enabled them to pass 
the examinations. 

A. (A large percentage of the boys who have entered this school 
have come with the intention of ultimately pursuing an engineer- 
ing career. In many cases their notion of engineering has been 
vague, but as clear as the notions of boys of thirteen or fourteen 
are likely to be touching their careers.) Many of the parents 
of these boys have been prepared to make heroic sacrifices to 
give them higher technical training if they showed that they 
were likely to profit by it. Even if these boys have failed to 
enter upon or complete the course in a technical college they 
have been vastly more satisfactorily trained in the direction of 



88 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School. 

their native aptitudes than they would have been in the English 
High School or in one of the district high schools. Their suc- 
cess, or failure, in a technical college has depended far more 
upon their native ability and ambition than upon their prelim- 
inary training, due to the need of earning money in time that 
should have been devoted to study. The fact that a consider- 
able number of the very best men that have been graduated 
from the Institute of Technology and the Lawrence Scientific 
School in the last fifteen years have been prepared in the Me- 
chanic Arts High School is strong evidence that the training 
which it gives is a satisfactory foundation for college work. 

(I believe that one of the functions of the school should be 
to prepare boys for technical colleges. It was organized in 1892 
as a high school. A fundamental principle of that organization 
was that it should be properly articulated with the schools 
below and above it. Movement from it to higher institutions 
of the same general type has always been recognized as fitting 
and logical.) This practice has had the approval of the sub- 
committee in charge of it, of all the supervisors or assistant 
superintendents assigned to it, and of each of the three superin- 
tendents who have held office since 1895. (That an intelligent 
community desires the continuance of this policy is conclusively 
shown by the record of enrollment. The rapid reduction in 
applications for admission and in the percentage of persistence 
in the various classes since 1909 has been very largely due to 
the announcement by the School Committee of an intention to 
make a radical change in the course of study.) Other causes, 
e. g., the change in the course in the elementary schools, the 
development of the High School of Commerce, and the organ- 
ization of business courses in the general high schools, may have 
had some effect, but these causes would at most have merely 
checked the rapidity of the growth of the school. They would 
not have caused the alarming reduction in numbers shown by 
the statistics which I have submitted to you. 

(If there are defects of organization or administration, they 
should be remedied without radical changes calculated to dis- 
turb the public mind and give the impression that the school 
has not accomplished its purpose. The records show clearly 
that it has done successfully the work for which it was organ- 
ized. If new aims are desirable, in view of changed economic, 



Appendix E 89 

industrial, or social conditions, a course adapted to meet those 
ends should be developed in harmonious relationship with exist- 
ing work.) If it proves to meet the public needs, it will gradually 
replace the old without injury to the reputation of the school or 
injustice to teachers who have a right to expect that the faithful 
discharge of the duties which they were expected to perform 
when they were appointed would lead to continuous employ- 
ment under reasonably favorable conditions. Unless the causes 
that have been operating to make the school unpopular since 
1909 can be removed, it will be necessary to dismiss many 
teachers in the near future. The announcement that the path 
of opportunity to higher education has been closed, in a school 
that has offered that opportunity for many years, tends strongly 
to give the public the impression that the school has been put 
on a lower plane. Many parents have called at my office to 
withdraw their sons reluctantly on account of the proposed 
change, but no patron of the school has ever expressed approval 
of it. 

For some time the classes have been steadily growing weaker 
in aptitude for mechanical work, and this reduction in native 
mechanical capacity has been particularly noticeable for the 
last two years. If the school is to turn out men fitted for re- 
sponsible positions in the industries on the business or directive 
side, its intake must not be confined to inferior boys. 

13. If the changes proposed were made the reduction of the 
entering class at the outset would be about 50 per cent. 

14. The typical boy wants a general education somewhat 
more practical than that given in the regular high schools in- 
cluding considerable shop work and drawing. 

15. I have little evidence: 

(a) That there would be such a field immediately. 

(b) That the attendance would justify the existence of the 
school. 

(c) That it would attract a different class of pupils. 

16. I would favor a part-time or co-operative scheme if ade- 
quate funds were available, the demand became evident, and 
time could be found for it when the plant was not fully employed 
with its regular work. 

17. No effort has been made in this direction. 

18. Without a much more careful investigation than I have 
neeb able to make I cannot express an opinion touching the 



90 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

part-time scheme most likely to be successful. Opening the 
shops in the summer and on Saturday appears to be most feasible. 
Valuable industrial instruction that does not require the use of 
the shop seems to be possible. 

19. Mainly lack of funds and limitation of accommodation. 

20. I believe that it is well worth while to do much more in 
this general direction. It is impossible to forecast the extent to 
which it will be successful. 

20. I believe that it is well worth while to do much more in 
this general direction. It is impossible to forecast the extent to 
which it will be successful. 

II 

Vocational Direction and Placement* 

1-3 inc. The curriculum of the Mechanic Arts High School 
includes many of the branches usually found in high schools, 
and they are taught in much the same way except that decidedly 
more emphasis is given to industrial history and to the practical 
applications of science and mathematics. The subjects peculiar 
to it are taught so as to give substantial knowledge of the ele- 
mentary facts and applications of the fundamental mechanic arts. 
This curriculum has proved singularly attractive and inspiring 
to many boys, and has given very valuable general culture of a 
type distinctly different from that which results from the stand- 
ard high school training. To the extent indicated in the fore- 
going it is a general high school. 

It tends strongly, however, to arouse interest in occupations 
in which the special training of the mechanical departments can 
be utilized. It furnishes a good preparation for a large variety 
of occupations related to the industries in which knowledge of 
drawing and mechanical processes is an important element of 
success. To that extent it is vocational. It shortens the period 
of apprenticeship for those who decide to become mechanics, 
but it does not produce journeymen. 

4. The best information that I have been able to obtain tends 
to show that a large percentage of the graduates have found 
employment appropriately related to the special training which 
they received. The number who remain in the industries as 



*For list of questions answered below see Section B of Appendix L. 



Appendix E 91 

journeymen is small, probably not more than five to eight per 
cent. Many begin as apprentices, but soon rise to positions of 
some responsibility. Not far from 65 per cent become draftsmen, 
electricians, foremen, superintendents, and salesmen of me- 
chanical products, or engage in some other occupation, more or 
less connected with the industries, for which their special train- 
ing has given them a manifestly better preparation than the 
courses in other high schools. From ten to fifteen per cent fol- 
low the usual careers of high school pupils. Most of the others 
practice some form of engineering after completing the whole or 
a part of a course in a higher technical school. 

Those who drop out generally accept whatever employment 
they can secure without much regard to their native aptitudes 
or training. 

It is likely that nearly all of the boys who come to this school 
want the kind of education that it is adapted to give. My 
answers to your various questions indicate what that type is. 
Roughly, about five per cent are misfits. 

For a series of years a little less than half of the members of 
the first year class have declared their intention of going to a 
technical college. Probably about half of that number have at 
the outset a fairly fixed intention of taking a higher course. 
Many desire training which leads to a technical college course 
on account of financial limitations. 

None take the entrance board's examinations. 

The percentage of boys who enter with a definite idea of the 
calling which they will follow is probably not large. I have no 
better basis for an opinion than the statistics recently obtained 
for you. 

5. The choice of a high school is usually made in the light 
of such information as boys and their parents get from other 
boys who have attended high schools, or their parents, supple- 
mented by the statements of the principals of the grammar 
schools. The percentage of parents who consult the principals 
is probably not very large and varies considerably in the differ- 
ent districts. 

The course of study and the reports of the Committee on 
Manual Training, which I gave you, have been sent to the prin- 
cipals of the grammar schools. Since September, 1909, it has 
been impracticable for me to make any authoritative state- 
ment. 



92 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

6-12 inc. Mr. Frederick W. Turner has been designated as 
vocational counselor for the school. He took the course in 
vocational guidance given in the Harvard Summer School last 
year and has attended the meetings of the vocational councils 
in Boston. He has read much upon the subject and gathered 
considerable valuable data. He is not relieved from regular 
duty on account of vocational work and can give little time to 
it. All of the teachers advise the boys more or less touching 
their future work. A few parents consult the headmaster 
concerning the admission of their sons, but neither he nor his 
teachers have an opportunity to influence much the choice of 
the great majority. Usually, the first notice received by teach- 
ers that a boy is about to withdraw from school is given when 
he returns his books. Many drop out without any notice and 
it is necessary to send for their text-books. If a conference 
with a boy who has announced his intention of leaving makes 
it seem likely that a letter will be of service, the headmaster 
writes to parents for an interview. About half of these inter- 
views result in keeping the boy in school. In general, however, 
the decision to leave is made at home, and the school cannot 
change it. Many withdrawals are made on account of eco- 
nomic necessity. It is possible, however, that under favorable 
conditions the school might be of real service in many more 
cases. 

I invite all members of each graduating class to write to me 
if they desire my aid in securing employment. Those letters 
are kept on file and assistance is given in many cases. Boys 
are occasionally placed for work during the summer. 

I favor a systematic effort to deal effectively with the problem 
of vocational guidance. It is clearly desirable to discover as 
early as possible the native tendencies of boys, point out the 
advantages and disadvantages of occupations that seem at- 
tractive to them, and indicate the training which will help them 
most in the work they are inclined to follow. Efforts may well 
be made to place them in desirable positions, but this is less 
important than giving them clear notions about various occupa- 
tions. 

The work involves: 

1. A study of the school records. 

2. The preparation and distribution of information touching 
the school useful to graduates of grammar schools. 



Appendix E 93 

3. Conferences with many boys and their parents. 

4. Visits to many homes. 

5. Study of home economic conditions. 

6. Conferences with employers both before and after boys 
are placed with them. 

7. Efforts to discover causes of failure both in and out of 
school. 

8. Efforts to guard against harmful amusements and unwise 
use of time out of school. 

9. Ways of keeping in school boys who are inclined to leave 
without good reason. 

10. Systematic records of information gained and work ac- 
complished. 

The above is, of course, only an imperfect outline. The work 
demands the entire time of a good man and a reasonable appro- 
priation for expenses. I believe that adequate provision for this 
service is justifiable. 

Ill 

Study and Promotion* 

1 and 2. Each teacher obtains his bi-monthly mark by com- 
bining the marks for daily recitations with those for numerous 
short tests; uniform tests for all divisions of the same grade are 
often prepared by the head of the department or by a teacher 
in conference with him. There is no fixed rule touching the 
relative weight to be given to tests and recitations, but the final 
mark is determined largely by the tests. Practice varies in 
different subjects. In the mathematical subjects the marks are 
based almost wholly upon tests. Equal weight is given to labor- 
atory, shop, and academic subjects. 

3. All of the work of the shop and much of the work in the 
laboratories is a test of manipulative or concrete ability. No 
set examinations are given to test such ability. 

4. Roughly, about 25 per cent of those who leave do so 
because likely to fail. It is difficult to say whether a boy leaves 
to go to work because he is likely to fail or neglects his work 
and fails because he has decided to go to work. 

5. The number of failures in 1911-12 were nearly in the ratio 
of the figures given below: 



* For list of questions answered below see Section C of Appendix L. 



94 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

First Year 

Algebra, 5; English, 9; Science, 12; History, 5; Shop, 7; 
Drawing, 3. 

Second Year 

Algebra, 2; Geometry, 3; English, 4; French, 4; History, 2; 
Shop, 6; Drawing, 1. 

Third Year 

Geometry, 2; English, 3; French, 3; Physics, 3; Shop, 2; 
Drawing, 1. 

6. Failures are mainly due to lack of ability, industry, and 
application. A few bright boys fail because they waste time 
with thoughtless or bad companions and neglect their home 
lessons. Probably some faithful plodders of fair ability fail 
because the pace is too rapid, but the number of such cases is 
very small. 

7 and 8. There is much complaint about unsatisfactory home 
study. It is somewhat more marked in the first and second than 
in the third and fourth years. 

9. Somewhat better results are obtained from the college 
group, but many boys in the non-college group do very good 
work. 

10. The standards are higher for the college group. 

11 and 12. Pupils who fail in two or more subjects are gen- 
erally required to repeat the year's work. In doubtful cases 
pupils are promoted provisionally and given an opportunity to 
redeem themselves if possible. Those not promoted are not re- 
quired to repeat shop work that has been done successfully, but 
more advanced work in the same or another shop is given. 

13. Deficiencies are generally removed by passing examina- 
tions. Preparation for the examinations is made in the Summer 
High School, by study with private tutors, or by reviews without 
instruction. In some cases pupils are permitted to advance in 
most subjects and repeat those in which they are deficient. 
Each case is considered sympathetically and every boy is placed 
where it is believed that he will work to the best advantage. 

14. Parents are notified of failures, conferences are held with 
them and with the boys, pressure of many kinds is brought to 
bear, and the boys are finally asked to withdraw when it is clear 
that the school can be of no further service to them without 
unreasonable demands upon the time of teachers. 



Appendix E 95 

IV 

Character of Training* 

1. In comparison with the regular high school the time given to 
academic subjects in the Mechanic Arts High School is about as 
follows: first year, two-thirds; second year, five-sixths; third year, 
a little more than two-thirds; fourth year, (1) shop group, a little 
less than two-thirds, (2) non-shop group, abou 20 per cent more. 

2 and 3. French is required in the second and third years. 

4 and 5. Three years of both shop work and drawing must be 
carried successfully. 

6-11 inc. There is only one course, but while the subjects of 
study are the same, the work of the stronger division is distinc- 
tively more difficult than that of the weaker divisions. In 
general, the work of the stronger division is more abstract, that 
of the weaker divisions more concrete. There is, therefore, 
throughout the first three years a rough approximation to two 
different courses, and in the fourth year the shop and non-shop 
divisions have distinctly different work. Frequent readjust- 
ments of divisions are made on the basis of ability and success 
as shown by the marks. The data are gathered and tabulated 
by heads of departments and the final decisions are made by 
them in conference with the headmaster. The aim is to place 
every boy where he will work to the best advantage. Frequent 
conferences with parents and pupils are held. Abundant warn- 
ing is given to pupils liable to be transferred to weaker divisions. 
They are kept in the stronger divisions until it is clear that 
different work will be more profitable for them. 

12. There are no formal conferences of all headmasters touch- 
ing the placing and transfer of pupils, but one headmaster oc- 
casionally confers with another about an individual pupil. Trans- 
fers are seldom sought by pupils who have not made a poor record 
in the school that they have attended. I have sometimes ad- 
vised the transfer of boys exceptionally strong in academic sub- 
jects and very weak in shop work and drawing, but have gen- 
erally been urged by parents to permit the boy to remain, on 
the ground that he needed the training of the shop to make him 
less one-sided. 

13. Roughly, about ten per cent of those who enter each 
class complete the non-shop course of the fourth year with a record. 

* For list of questions answered below see Section D of Appendix L. 



96 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

which makes it likely that they can pass the examinations for 
admission to a technical college or entitles them to certificates 
for such colleges. Many equally able boys chose the shop course. 
14. The school year 1911-12 was the first since 1900-01 when 
adequate shop accommodations were available for fourth year 
boys. For many years, shop work could be taken by fourth 
year boys only under very favorable conditions. A large num- 
ber chose shop work in 1910-11, but they were employed much 
of the time upon the installation of equipment. The fourth 
year class of 1911-12 was divided as follows: 

Number taking shop work and drawing 139 

Number not taking shop work and drawing. . . 85 

This division is what may fairly be expected with free choice 
under existing conditions. It is the theory of the school that 
along with shop work and drawing a course is given that will 
enable a large majority of the pupils to start in life advanta- 
geously, particularly on the business and directive side of in- 
dustry, while giving to others, especially in the fourth year, 
more intensive academic work adapted to prepare them to pass 
the examinations for admission to technical colleges. A con- 
siderable number prefer to emphasize academic work in the last 
year although they do not expect to go to college. 

17. At the end of the first year, but not later, transfers from 
the Mechanic Arts High School to other Boston high schools, 
or vice versa, may be made by those who have done good work. 
It very seldom happens that such boys desire to be transferred. 
Adjustments to the conditions and methods of a new school can 
never be made without some loss. 

18. Answered under 13. 

19. After discussion extending over six years, the question of 
the desirability and expediency of enlarging the Mechanic Arts 
High School, at a cost of $500,000, was referred to a committee 
consisting of Charles W. Eliot, president of Harvard University, 
Thomas I. Casson, S. J., president of Boston College, and 
Henry S. Pritchett, president of the Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology. On November 7, 1907, that committee unani- 
mously recommended the erection of the large extension, the 
plans of which had been developed to meet the needs of a course 
of study substantially like that now in use. 



Appendix E 97 

When the school contains the largest number of pupils that 
can be provided for in the mechanical department, there will 
still be a sufficient number of classrooms for all the academic 
work unless the relative amount of that work is considerably 
increased. There is not now, and there is not likely to be in the 
future, any crowding of the school on account of academic work. 
It would be indefensible to transfer pupils doing purely academic 
work from this school, where there are adequate classrooms, to 
the English High School for which it is now necessary to hire 
accommodations. Moreover, pupils generally become attached 
to the school of their choice and loyal to it. Neither they nor 
their parents will consent without earnest protest to transfers 
that are not obviously necessary. After pupils have become 
acquainted with the teachers and methods of a high school, 
they cannot change to another without considerable loss in ad- 
justing themselves to the new condition. There is no reason 
why all of the academic work now undertaken, or likely to prove 
desirable for those who wish to emphasize academic subjects, 
cannot be carried on in the best way without interfering in the 
slightest degree with the most satisfactory training of the more 
concrete boys who desire to emphasize shop work and the prac- 
tical applications of their academic study. Every individual 
case will be studied more sympathetically and dealt with more 
wisely if it is only necessary to shift a boy from one department 
of this school to another than if he must be transferred to another 
school to give him the opportunities which he appears to need. 

It may be that the functions of the school would be more 
clearly denned in the public mind and some advantages of ad- 
ministration secured by laying out the work in two distinct 
courses. These courses should be nearly parallel for two years, 
but would separate quite widely in the third and fourth years. 

I prefer not to give more definite answers to the other ques- 
tions until I have had an opportunity to discuss the whole 
problem with you. 

V 

Character of the Shop Work* 
1. Time. 

First year, wood-work with hand tools, 2 periods daily. 
Second year, pattern-making, 2 periods daily, half year. 



* For list of questions answered below see Section E of Appendix L. 



98 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School. 

Second year, forging, 2 periods daily, half year. 

Third year, machine shop work, 2 periods alternate daj^s. 

Fourth year, machine shop work, 2 periods daily. 

2. Qualifications of instructors. 

See Circular of Information No. 48, 1911, p. 8, V. 

A special assistant is employed in each shop or drawing room. 
These assistants are recent graduates of the school, chosen on 
the ground of their general fitness for the special work assigned 
to them. They serve on a temporary basis usually for not more 
than two years. 

3. Covered in two. 

4 and 5. The heads of departments are all men who have had 
prolonged trade experience before taking up school work and 
their scholarly instinct and ambition have combined to keep 
them well informed. Their numerous visits to factories and 
conferences with manufacturers touching machinery and equip- 
ment have given them definite information touching the progress 
of shop methods. Not only the heads of departments, but all 
other instructors are constant readers of trade journals and 
books relating to the various industries. Several of the younger 
instructors have taken courses in the Harvard Summer School. 
One of them spent a summer with Buff and Buff Manufacturing 
Co., makers of high grade surveying instruments. He spent 
another summer, under the direction of Mr. Turner, head of 
the department of pattern-making, securing information from 
various manufacturers for the Massachusetts Industrial Com- 
mission. Another instructor is spending the present summer 
working in the shops of the Blanchard Machine Co. Another 
is in an automobile shop in Beverly. Another spent a summer 
a year or two ago in a planing mill in Roxbury. Several of them 
have taken courses in the Lowell Institute School for Industrial 
Foremen. All of them have made themselves reasonably famil- 
iar with the industries of Boston and vicinity by frequent visits 
to factories. 

With the exception of the instructors in wood-working, the 
younger instructors in shop work are associated as teachers of 
evening classes with other teachers who hold responsible posi- 
tions in commercial shops. 

6. Largest number of pupils in a shop class: 

First year, 40; second year, 36; third year, 32; fourth year, 
39. 



Appendix E 99 

7. Smallest number of a shop class: 

First year, 18; second year, 22; third year, 26; fourth year, 31. 

These small numbers apply to only a few divisions near the 
end of the school year. 

8. The number of pupils per shop instructor depends upon so 
many conditions that I can make no general statement. 

9-13 inc. In all subjects during the elementary stages the 
teaching is by lectures and demonstrations to group, but it is 
always supplemented by individual instruction. After a demon- 
stration all pupils proceed upon the same work except those 
who are not prepared to go on with their classmates because of 
absences from previous lessons. Much individual work is done 
by rapid workers who complete regular jobs in advance of their 
classmates. They work either alone or in groups. At the out- 
set, in any shop, special class work is advisable both on account 
of economy and efficiency in teaching. The demonstration to 
groups stimulates the teacher to do his best and relieves him 
from the constant repetition which exhausts both his strength 
and his interest in the subjects. A well conducted class exercise 
provides for discussion and questioning which react favorabty 
upon both teacher and pupil. Emulation and initiative are 
important incentives especially with the younger boys. In the 
earlier stages in which class work can be carried on effectively 
the objection to the individual method is that it makes unneces- 
sary demands upon the time and energy of teachers, but when 
boys are engaged upon fairly difficult projects, individual in- 
struction is indispensable. The group method is preferred for 
all of the reasons stated in Question 11. In the later stages of 
the work in each department groups are selected for special work 
with the end in view of securing the advantages of co-operation 
and direction — one student acting as the leader or boss. 

The cost of material for any form of purely individual instruc- 
tion would be excessive. 

All supplies and materials are purchased by the city. The 
pupils pay the cost of material for private, individual projects. 
They take home what they make unless the article is of use to 
the school. The appended list shows that many things are made 
for the school. No part of the output of the shops has been 
sold. 



100 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School. 

The original installation of the shop equipment was completed 
in 1895. All additional shafting and machinery have been 
installed by the instructors, assisted by pupils. This work of 
pupils has always taken the place of other shop exercises, and 
has been conducted in such a systematic way as to give valuable 
experience together with clear and definite ideas of practical 
methods of procedure. Student labor has never been used merely 
to get a given job done quickly and cheaply. 

14. This question is intended to indicate an educational aim 
which has existed in manual training high schools for many 
years without being clearly recognized and formulated. It is 
not yet possible to give it an accurate and comprehensive defini- 
tion. Not many boys enter the Mechanic Arts High School 
with this aim fairly definitely in mind, but its significance is 
measurably revealed as they go on with the course. The work 
of the school may be improved in this general direction by further 
development of the courses in industrial chemistry and physics, 
industrial history, the first year course in elementary applied 
science, and by increased emphasis upon the applications of 
mathematics together with more instruction in the shops relat- 
ing to various phases of industry. To go further and devote 
much more time to shop work and drawing, put the shops on 
something like a productive basis, provide for much more indi- 
vidual instruction and for group work on fairly important pro- 
jects, would increase the expense enormously and diminish cor- 
respondingly the number of pupils that could be accommodated. 
The equipment is well adapted to such work as has been carried 
on and will yield readily to considerable modification in details 
of method, but it is not suited to work approaching that of a 
trade school. The safe course is to seek for practicable improve- 
ments of existing methods rather than for radical changes of 
general policy. In most departments, changes in the character 
of the work and in methods of procedure have been made every 
year since the school was organized. In several departments 
the changes made during the past three years have been im- 
portant. Funds are not available to sustain a much more 
expensive policy. The school has always done very much more 
than is generally realized to make boys "industry wise." 

15 and 16. Visits to industrial establishments are made by 
members of the fourth year class under the direction of the 



Appendix E 101 

teachers of chemistry and of shop work. These visits are care- 
fully planned and explanations are given in advance touching 
the points of interest to be observed. More of these visits 
would be profitable, but they require the time of instructors and 
involve expense for which no provision has been made. Oc- 
casional addresses by manufacturers, foremen, etc., are likely to 
be worth while. It is not probable, however, that they can be 
made a permanent part of the regular instruction. Practical 
men are not likely to be good lecturers and those who are can 
hardly be expected to give their time freely year after year. 

17. (a) Boys generally work from drawings made by them- 
selves, though the drawings are often pencil sketches carefully 
made, but not to exact scale. 

(b) Most of the prints used in the shops, after the first year, 
are from original drawings and tracings made in the drawing 
department by pupils. 

(c) The work is done mainly as follows: 

First year, from sketches made in the shop. 

Second year, from sketches made in the shop. 

Third year, from blueprints of drawings made in the drawing 
room by the pupil doing the work or by other pupils. Some 
blackboard drawing by the instructor is used. 

Fourth year, some blueprints of drawings made in the drawing 
room are used. Many sketches, especially of other than standard 
pieces, are made in the shops. 

The shop instructor checks the drawings made in the shops. 

(f) The shop projects are usually determined by the head of 
the department in consultation with his assistants, in accord- 
ance with general plans approved by the headmaster. 

(g) The work of the shops is laid out and the character of 
the drawings for executing it is determined by the shop in- 
structor. The first drawings are sometimes made by him. 
Models for use in the drawing room are occasionally made in 
the shops. 

(h), (i), (j). The shops and drawing rooms are intimately 
related as indicated above. Each department has its own 
function, but the purposes of both are often served at the same 
time. It is desirable to emphasize the practical applications of 
drawing, but the exact relation which exists between the draw- 
ing rooms and the shops in a manufacturing establishment is 
not wholly practicable in a school. In the industries the work 
to be done is determined and planned in the drafting room, to 



102 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

be executed in the shops, for the sole purpose of obtaining a pro- 
duct which can be sold. The purpose of the school is to co-ordi- 
nate shop work and drawing and give thorough instruction in both. 

18. The aim of the work in each shop is (1) to give the pupil 
the power to handle intelligently the fundamental tools and 
materials of the trade (pattern-making, for example), and (2) 
to give him as much knowledge of the essential processes as 
practicable by making typical products (patterns) fairly well. 
Neither technique nor output should be strongly emphasized. 
Knowledge and power are the desirable ends. 

19. Best explained in an interview. 
20 and 21. See appended list. 

22. Among the purposes of the shop work are all of those sug- 
gested by (a-f), inclusive. 

VI 

The Drawing* 

The time given to drawing is as follows: 

First year, lessons on alternate days, equivalent to 2 3^ per- 
iods per week. 

Second year, lessons on alternate days, equivalent to 2J^ per- 
iods per week. 

Third year, lessons on alternate days, equivalent to 2j^ per- 
iods per week. 

Fourth year, lessons daily, 5 periods per week, in either (a) 
architectural design, (b) machine design, (c) industrial design. 

In the first year, about three-fourths of the time is given to 
free-hand work, mainly technical sketching, the rest to instru- 
mental working drawings of simple objects. This course is 
intended to co-ordinate and make more effective the drawing 
required in the shops and in the classes in elementary science. 

The second year is devoted to orthographic projection — type 
forms, cutting planes, etc. — together with elementary machine 
drawing. Much of this work is preceded by free-hand sketches 
which take about one-fourth of the entire time. 

The third year is devoted to orthographic projection, inter- 
section of solids, and architectural and machine drawing. Many 
of the architectural and machine drawings are preceded by 
free-hand sketches. This free-hand work takes about one- 
fourth of the entire time. 



* For list of questions answered below see Section F of Appendix L. 



Appendix E 103 

In the fourth year a boy may give his entire time to one of 
the following: 

(a) Architectural design. 

(b) Machine design. 

(c) Industrial design. 

The work in (c) is mainly free-hand; in (a) and (b) about 
one-fourth of the time is given to free-hand sketching. 

Number of drawings by each pupil: 

First year, 50+. 
Second year, 20-25. 
Third year, 15-18. 
Fourth year, 12-15. 

The only available samples of drawings are mounted so that 
it is inconvenient to send them. I hope that it will be possible 
for you to examine them with me at the school. Nearly all of 
the drawings have been taken away by the boys who made 
them. 

VII 

Additional Questions 

1-3 inc. Definite instruction is regularly given upon such 
topics as: sources, methods of production, varieties, and char- 
acteristics of iron, steel, and other materials used in machine 
construction; grinding wheels, files, belts, lubricants, measuring 
tools, standards of measure, transmission of power, art of cutting 
metals; origin, preparation, transportation, local purchasing 
points, and cost per thousand of many varieties of lumber; mater- 
ials used in the shops, such as glue, brads, screws, shellac; name, 
size, standard makes, price, and local purchasing points of all 
the ordinary tools. Special attention is given to computing 
cost of stock, both from drawings and from direct measure- 
ments. This computation takes account of percentage of 
waste, value of lumber in the pile, cost of delivery, etc. 

Some of these topics are treated by talks occupying the 
greater part of a lesson. Others are introduced in connection 
with lectures dealing with the shop processes which suggest 
them. No set time is assigned to such work. It is all done 
incidentally in connection with the demonstrations and discus- 
sions in the shops. The total amount of time given to it has 
not been great, but the interest aroused has been encouraging. 
Some of the information suggested above is emphasized in visits 
to manufacturing plants. 



104 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School. 

Commercial shop methods are always mentioned and ex- 
plained in comparison with the simpler job-shop methods by 
which the pupil is usually first made acquainted with a process, 
and frequently the commercial method of procedure is actually 
used in the school shops. For example, a given process is 
taught by performing the operation upon a number of pieces in 
a lot; special fixtures are set up for handling the entire work of 
a group; simple jigs, forming tools, and other means of securing 
rapid production and inter changeability are used. Pupils 
often participate in planning and making the special tools re- 
quired. In the machine shop tool-rooms, up-to-date reference 
books are kept for students' use, giving data concerning tools, 
screws, bolts, and a multitude of standard machine parts and 
shop supplies. 

In all departments there is some form of shop system cal- 
culated to emphasize the need of co-operation, the checking and 
inspection of work, the cost of material, the value of time, and 
the general responsibility of each pupil for efficiency. These 
matters receive increased attention in the latter part of the shop 
and drawing courses, and become relatively more important as 
the time devoted to these subjects by a given pupil is increased. 

An entire class in drawing is sometimes treated as a drafting 
room force. 

Blanks are herewith submitted indicating the development of 
a simple shop system adapted to produce some of the results 
above mentioned. 

We are inclined to increase the attention given to the above 
and to whatever is suggested by la, b, c, d, e. 

The teaching is by instructors who have had practical exper- 
ience in the industries. 

VIII 
Qualifications of Teachers 

Mr. Eddy, head of the department of wood-working, was a 
journeyman carpenter, who became one of the pioneer teachers 
of manual training in the Boston grammar schools. He has done 
much high grade cabinet making and carving. I think that he 
gave you a fairly full account of his career. 

Mr. Sweet, head of the department of machine shop practice, 
spent seven years as apprentice and journeyman machinist, 
three years as superintendent of the shops of the Cambridge 



Appendix E 105 

Street Railway, after which he was employed seven years as 
instructor in machine shop work in the Rindge Manual Train- 
ing School, before coming to this school in 1896. 

Mr. Raymond, head of the department of forging, spent one 
year as a stationary engineer, about three years working at gen- 
eral blacksmithing, three years as instructor of forging in the 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and three years as 
instructor in forging in the Chicago Manual Training School, 
before coming to this school in 1895. 

Mr. Turner, head of the department of pattern-making, 
spent fourteen years with the Gamewell Fire Alarm Telegraph 
Company as apprentice, journeyman, department foreman, 
chief inspector, traveling salesman, and superintendent of the 
factory. With this company he had experience in a very wide 
range of mechanical work. He then had eight years' experience 
as a teacher of machine shop work in the Rindge Manual Train- 
ing School, before coming to this school. 

Mr. Knapp, head of the department of drawing, was gradu- 
ated from this school in 1896, in the first class which was sent 
out. After spending one year in the Engineering School of 
Tufts College and one year in the Massachusetts Normal Art 
School, he returned to this school as a special assistant, and has 
worked his way up by steadily increasing efficiency. He has 
never worked in an industrial establishment, but has had valu- 
able experience in practical architectural work, and in making 
drawings to be sent to the patent office. He made many of the 
illustrations for Professor Hoffman's Metallurgy. He has been 
a faithful student of industrial methods. 

After graduating from the Rindge Manual Training School, 
Mr. Temple had nine years of successful experience in the draft- 
ing rooms of industrial establishments. He received a diploma 
in each of two courses in Lowell School for Industrial Foremen. 

Mr. Perry was graduated from the Natick High School in 
1901, and from the Massachusetts Normal Art School in 1905. 
He had successful experience in teaching and did considerable 
commercial illustrative work, before coming to this school. 

Mr. Parsons was graduate from Cornell University, B. S. 
in architecture, 1896. He had fifteen years of experience as an 
architectural draftsman, and in private practice as an archi- 
tect, before coming to this school. He had taught three years 
in the Central Evening Industrial School. 



106 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 



APPENDIX F 



TABLE 1 



Table Showing Occupations 


OF 


Graduates 
School 


OF 


THE 


Mechanics Art 


High 




'96 


'97 

1 

'i 

l 

3 

1 

i 
i 

i 


'98 

1 
2 

*2 

i 


'99 

i 

3 

1 

5 

i 
l 

l 

*2 

*3 
1 


'00 

2 

2 

'i 
l 

2 
2 
1 

3 
1 

i 

1 


'01 

i 

2 

3 

*2 

1 

i 
'2 

i 


'02 
*2 

i 
2 

3 

2 

'2 
2 
3 

i 

2 


'03 

i 
1 
1 

1 

7 

4 
3 

3 

2 

i 

2 
1 

i 
1 


'04 
'2 

'i 

5 

3 
1 

'3 

3 

'2 
1 

i 
1 

1 

i 
1 
i 


'05 

i 

5 

4 
4 

i 
1 

3 

1 
5 

'i 
3 


'06 

*8 
3 

1 
1 
1 
1 

*3 
3 
5 

i 

1 

1 

2 
2 
1 


'07 

2 
5 

1 

1 

'2 

'3 

'0 
3 
1 

2 

1 

1 

2 
2 
1 
1 
1 


'08 

2 
4 
1 
2 

1 

'4 
'5 

*3 

1 
3 

4 

i 


*'10 

i 
3 
1 

2 

'2 

'7 

2 
3 

4 

i 
1 
1 

1 


Total 


Total Reporting 

Electrical work 


1316 
12 


Draftsmen and designers.. . . 

Mechanics, general 

Machinists 




37 

8 
7 


Superintendents, inspectors, 

foremen, etc. (mech. work) 

Engineers, civil, mechanical, 

electrical, sanitary 

Assistants to engineers 

Assistants, technical colleges 
Teachers, mech. branches. 
Salesmen, mechanical goods . 
Salesmen, general 


1 

i 
l 

2 
1 
1 

i 

2 

1 


25 

28 
21 
3 
23 
15 
1 14 


Clerks, mechanical 


18 


Clerks, commercial 


27 


Business, mechanical 

Business, general 

Architects 


12 
4 

7 


Chemists 


6 


Farmers, florists, etc 

U. S. Service, forestry, geo. 

survey, reclamation, etc. 

Dentists 


3 

6 
2 


Chauffeurs 












2 


Aviators 


















1 


Marine officers 


i 






i 


i 


1 


i 




3 


Miscellaneous 


4 


Students 

Mass. Inst. Tech 

Tufts 








15 

4 


Harvard 






















3 


Textile School 

Mass. Agricul. College 

Worcester Technical 

Harvard Dental School. . . 
Mass. Normal Art 






















1 
2 
1 
1 
1 



This exhibit, compiled in April, 1912, shows all of the responses 
to requests for information mailed to the last known address of 
every graduate on May 3, 1911. The total number of graduates 
was then 1,547. 

*Class of 1909 is omitted because all of the members had previously 
received a third year diploma. 



Appendix F 



107 



TABLE 2 

Exhibit of Employment of Graduates of the Mechanic Arts High School 





1896 


'97 


'98 


'99 


'00 


'01 


'02 


'03 


'04 


'05 


'06 


'07 


Total 


Total Reporting 


2 

1 

4 

3 

'2 
3 
'3 

'3 

i 
3 

1 

1 
1 


3 

1 
2 

'2 

2 

1 
1 

1 
2 

1 


1 

3 

1 
1 

'2 

1 

3 


3 
1 

6 

10 
1 
1 
5 

2 
1 
2 
1 
2 
1 
5 
3 

1 

2 

1 

i 


6 
1 

2 

1 

4 
*6 

'2 
1 
1 
2 
3 
2 
1 

1 

1 

1 

1 

1 
1 

1 

1 


7 

6 
3 

6 

"5 
1 

2 

2 
4 

2 
1 

1 
1 

3 
1 

2 
1 
1 
1 

2 


6 

3 

2 

*2 

1 
3 
2 

'2 
2 
4 

1 

2 

6 
3 

1 
1 


17 
1 
1 
6 

2 

2 

5 

4 
2 
7 
1 
1 
1 
2 
1 

2 
2 

i 

1 

i 

2 
1 

i 


11 

1 

3 

15 

4 
6 

3 

'9 

2 
1 
1 
3 

2 
1 


18 
3 

±2 

3 

11 

6 
1 
9 

*2 
*2 

'i 

'2 


10 
2 
1 

15 

6 

13 

6 

4 

13 

3 

i 
1 
1 

1 

1 

1 

1 


12 

li 

1 

'4 
11 

3 
12 

1 
1 
1 

1 

1 
1 

1 


575 


Students 

Mass. Inst. Tech 

Lawrence Sci 


96 
9 


Normal Art 


8 


Other institutions 

Graduates 

Mass. Inst. Tech 

Lawrence Sci 


83 

27 
1 


Electrical business 

Draftsmen 


22 

69 


Stair, pattern-makers, and 

other mechanics 

Machinists 


30 
11 


Clerks 


65 


Assistants, M. I. T 

Teachers (mech. branches) 

Assistants to engineers 

Civil and mech. engineers. 
Salesmen 


4 

7 

17 

17 

22 


Mill engineers 


2 


Dentists 


4 


Designers (reflectors, pat- 
terns) 


2 


Mech. superintendents, 

foremen and inspectors.. . 
Forestry 


22 
5 


Florists and fruit growers . . 
Sanitary research 


2 
2 


Advertisers 


1 


Mining engineers 


7 


Lawyers 


3 


Insurance 


4 


Lumber 


1 


Contractors 


2 


U. S. Navy Cadet 

Marine cadet 


2 
1 


Graduates 

Colo, and Yale 


1 


Univ. of Maine 


1 


Ministry (student) 

Publishers 


1 
2 


Merchants 


1 


Chemists 

Mosaic glass worker 

Real estate 


1 
1 
1 


Dairy farm and milk 

Banker and broker 


2 
2 
1 


Musician 


1 


Unemployed 


11 











This exhibit, compiled in September, 1908, shows all of the 
responses to requests for information mailed to the last known 



108 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School. 



address of every graduate on February 17, 1908. The total 
number of graduates was then 1,188. 



APPENDIX G 

Table Giving Comparison of Occupations op Graduates op the 
chanic Arts High School and the English High School 



Me- 



M.A.H. S. E. H. S 



Students 

Lawyers 

Clergymen 

Physicians 

Dentists 

Veterinary 

Actors 

Clerks 

Salesmen and buyers 

Bookkeepers 

Merchants 

Bankers and brokers 

Manufacturers 

Real estate and insurance 

Professors, principals, and teachers 

Architects and draftsmen 

Artists and photographers 

Musicians 

Assessors, commissioners, and examiners, etc 

Piano workers 

Truckmen 

Policemen 

Letter carriers 

Engineers, civil, sanitary, S. S., elec. mech., and min 

Collectors and credit men 

Editors and journalists 

Machinists and patternmakers 

Contractors, carpenters, and roofers 

Electric and telephone 

Tinsmiths and plumbers 

Superintendents and managers 

Conductors and firemen 

Printers, engravers, and proofreaders 

Railroad agents 

Druggists and chemists 

Painters and decorators 

Private secretaries and stenographers 

Reporters 

Publishers and advertisers 

Hotel and liverymen 

Watchmakers and opticians 

Farmers and ranchmen 

Statistician 

Mining 

Observer United States Weather Bureau 

Captain S. S. and marine officers 

Janitors and porters 

Tailors 



28 



45 
29 



23 

44 



72 

32 

10 

28 

5 

1 

5 

134 

95 

36 

78 

14 

18 

18 

10 

9 

4 

4 

3 

4 

7 

8 

10 

33 

4 

6 

6 

10 

10 

2 

29 

2 

14 

4 

18 

7 

11 

3 

2 

5 

3 

4 

1 

2 

1 

1 

3 

3 



Appendix H 



109 



Appendix 


G (Continued) 








M. A.H.S. 


E. H. S. 


Chauffeurs 


2 
21 
3 
4 
12 
1 
4 

316 




Assistants to engineers. . 




Assistants in technical college 




Business, general 




Business, mechanical 




Aviator 




Miscellaneous 


19 




808 



Naturally all the information in the above tabulation was 
gathered by the faculty of each school through the answers to 
questions made by graduates at class reunion and dinners and 
necessarily represents a fragmentary study of what are probably 
the most loyal and successful students of the two schools. 

If we disregard, on the one hand, the occupations requiring 
a general college education, such as students, lawyers, clergy- 
men, physicians, professors, principals, and teachers of the 
liberal and cultural subjects, and, on the other hand, the occupa- 
tions requiring a technical college education such as assistants 
in technical college, engineers of all kinds, architects, and pro- 
fessors, principals, and teachers of technical subjects, it does 
not appear that there is very much difference on the whole in 
the variety or character of the callings followed by the gradu- 
ates. 



APPENDIX H 



SUGGESTIONS AS TO DEVICES IN GETTING HOLD OF 
PUPILS DESIRING TO BE TRAINED TO BE IN- 
DUSTRIAL CADETS 

1. Co-operation of the authorities of the Mechanic Arts 
High School with the grammar schools and the other high schools 
of the city by means of frequent and regular conferences with 
the principals, teachers, and vocational counselors of the gram- 
mar schools and the headmasters and vocational counselors of 
the other high schools. 



110 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School. 

2. Conferences with prospective pupils and their parents, in 
order to determine the pupil's interests, aptitudes, and pros- 
pects, his motives in coming to the school, and hi3 probable 
fitness to profit by the training it offers. 

3. Complete records from the grammar school, giving not 
only the usual school data, but also full information concerning 
the pupil's health, aptitudes, interests, and motives as discovered 
in the grammar school through vocational guidance. The 
record cards should be carefully worked out and sent to the 
M. A. H. S. for use by the vocational counselor of the high 
school. 

4. Records of information from employers for whom the 
prospective pupil may have worked, touching such matters as 
interests, reliability, industriousness, habits, etc. 

5. Records of information from parents covering such matters 
as occupation of parent, health of pupil, outside interests and 
employment of pupil, reasons for employment, parent's reason 
for selecting the school, and length of time he intends the pupil 
shall attend. 

6. Conferences with the headmasters or vocational counsel- 
ors of other high schools, and with parents before transfers are 
made to or from the school. 

7. Systematic plans of advertising the work and aim of the 
school among pupils, teachers, and vocational counselors of the 
grammar schools, and the general public, including, besides con- 
ferences, such means as lectures, circulars, and newspaper ar- 
ticles. 

8. Visits organized intelligently to inspect the Mechanic Arts 
High School where the work is explained to grammar school 
pupils. Parents' visits also should be arranged. 

9. Tie up this work of selection with a well-rounded pre-voca- 
tional scheme of selection which will afford pupils a chance to 
sample varied industrial activities in the upper grades of the 
elementary school before selecting a secondary school. 



Appendix I 



111 



APPENDIX I 

COMPARATIVE PER CAPITA COST OF MAINTENANCE 
OF VARIOUS BOSTON HIGH SCHOOLS AND VOCA- 
TIONAL SCHOOLS 

EXHIBIT I 

Cost of Instruction Per Pupil 





Public Latin 
School 


English High 
School 


Mechanic Arts 
High School 


1895-6 

1896-7 ; ... 

1898-9 


$ 78.29 
79.06 

88.81 

89.27 

100.87 

103.54 

97.80 

100.61 


$ 82.28 
77.02 
83.49 
84.89 
93.93 

108.56 
94.89 
91.69 


$ 125.05 
96.06 
75.90 


189&-00 

1900-1 

1901-2 

1902-3 


74.07 
79.45 
74.77 
73.27 


1903-4 


73.53 



From 1895 to 1904 the per capita cost of instruction per pupil 
in the Public Latin School increased more than 29%, and in 
the English High School more than 11%; while at the same 
time the cost per pupil of the Mechanic Arts High School de- 
creased more than 40%. The decrease at the latter was pro- 
duced almost entirely by increasing the number of pupils taught 
by each teacher in the class and shop rooms. The table given 
below shows that since 1903-4 there has been a very marked 
decrease in the cost of instruction at the first two boys' schools 
named above and a very marked increase at the Mechanic 
Arts High School. At the latter school the increase has been 
due largely to the decrease in the total attendance of the school 
during the past three or four years. 

The per capita cost in the Trade School for Girls for the year 
ending January 31, 1912, based on the average membership, 
was as follows: 

For Period of Ten Months 

Exclusive of cost of administration, supervision, and general charges $114.45 
Inclusive of cost of administration, supervision, and general charges 118.76 

The per capita cost in the Mechanic Arts High School for the 
same period, based on average membership, exclusive of the cost 
of administration, supervision, and general charges, was $88.53. 



112 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

EXHIBIT 2 

Cost Per Capita of the Different Boston High Schools for 
the Year 1912 

Normal $170.24 

Brighton 94.24 

Latin 93.80 

Mechanics 88.63 

East Boston 79.19 

Charlestown 78.85 

South Boston 78.64 

Commerce 77.98 

West Roxbury 77.61 

Girls' Latin 74.81 

Practical Arts 74.69 

English 74.61 

Roxbury 71.62 

Dorchester 67.09 

Girls' High 52.63 



APPENDIX J 

Announcement of Intentions Concerning College Made by Pupils of 
Mechanics Art High School, March 28, 1912 



Year 


Total 


Number 
going to 
College 


Undecided 


Number not 
going to 
College 


First 


513 
315 
233 
230 


181 
150 
110 
101 


78 
14 
16 
15 


254 


Second 


151 


Third 


107 


Fourth 


114 







APPENDIX K 



POSITIONS FOR WHICH GRADUATES OF THE ME- 
CHANIC ARTS SCHOOL OF BOSTON SHOULD BE 
PROPERLY FITTED 

This report is indebted to Mr. Arthur Williston, director of 
Wentworth Institute, for all the material presented in this Ap- 
pendix. 

If the Mechanic Arts School of Boston is modified in its plans 
according to the recommendations which I have submitted so 



Appendix K 113 

as to make its central purpose efficiency in preparation for 
practical work of life rather than preparation for college, its 
graduates would be well fitted for the large and already rapidly 
increasing number of important positions in mechanical, elec- 
trical, and architectural fieldss. 

The four year course, as I have recommended it, is not in- 
tended to educate engineers, investigators, or teachers of ap- 
plied science as is the technical course of the college and uni- 
versities, nor is it expected that this course will enable its gradu- 
ates to serve the more important and far-reaching problems in 
modern engineering; nor is it, on the other hand, a trade course 
intended for those who wish to become merely artisans or me- 
chanics — this course occupies a middle position between these 
two field. 

The trained workers in mechanical, electrical, and archi- 
tectural fields at the present time may be divided in a general 
way into three distinct classes. The first and highest comprises 
men of superior ability and attainment who ordinate or direct 
important operations requiring, as a rule, the services of many 
subordinates. In the second class we find the engineering experts, 
the designing and consulting engineers, and many others who 
bear the prime responsibility for the successful operation of 
industrial or engineering enterprises. The third and last class 
is composed of the skilled and unskilled laborers, the mechanics 
of various degrees of training and efficiency. 

Between the highest and the lowest class, however, there is 
another field — the workers of which constitute an intermediate 
class and occupy positions secondary and subordinate to the 
members of the first class, but, nevertheless, of much importance. 
The field for this intermediate class of workers has been widen- 
ing very rapidly the last decade or two, especially during the 
last decade. In a general way the workers in it are the assistants 
to the engineers, the supervisors of skilled labor or the specialists 
forming one kind or another of operations that require some 
special knowledge or training in excess of that ordinarily possessed 
by the skilled mechanic. The graduates of the Mechanic Arts 
School of Boston should be competent to fill positions of this kind. 

I can perhaps further indicate the type of positions that I 
have reference to by giving a list of typical positions in this 
class in mechanical, electrical, and architectural lines of work. 



114 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School. 

Mechanical Positions for Which Graduates of the Me- 
chanic Arts School Should Be Fitted 

No. 1. In factories and manufacturing plants — 

Inspectors 

Detail designers 

Draftsmen 

Erection foremen 

Engineers' assistants 

Cost accountants 

Production clerks and foremen 

Piece work supervisors and foremen 

Master mechanics 

Department superintendents 

Testers of special apparatus 

Builders and testers of experimental work 

Stock clerks 

Production clerks for various departments 

Investigators of efficiency of different methods of construction 

Etc., etc., etc. 

The above list is far from complete as there is not a large 
modern factory but what has in its organization the engineer 
and the skilled mechanics, and a very large number of positions 
of which the above are typical. 

No. 2. For power plants and office buildings — 
Assistant engineers 
Stationary engineers 

Superintendents in charge of heating systems and mechanical 
equipments. 

No. 3. Motive power department in steam and electric rail- 
road — 

A great variety of positions similar to those indicated in group 
No. 1 

No. 4. For factory and steam boiler insurance companies — 

Inspectors 

Draftsmen 

Etc., etc. 

No. 5. For sales department of factory and machine houses — 

Clerks 
Salesmen 



Appendix K 115 

Assistant engineers, etc., etc., who are competent to describe 
intelligently mechanical advantages and advise customers 
of the proper size and kind of machinery to purchase for 
their particular work and how to install it so as to obtain its 
proper efficiency. 

Electrical Positions for which Graduates of the Me- 
chanic Arts School Should Be Fitted 

No. 1. Electrical manufacturing — 

(a) Dynamos, motors, and general power apparatus — 

Draftsmen and detail designers 
Sub-foremen in shops 

Testers of apparatus in process of and after construc- 
tion 
Foremen of erection in power plant 
Switchboard and power plant wiremen 
Engineers' assistants 

(b) Telephones, telephone switchboards, and cables — 

Switchboard wiremen 
Switchboard testers and inspectors 
Cable testers 
Draftsmen 

(c) Electrical instruments and apparatus — 

Inspectors 
Draftsmen 
Calibrators 

No. 2. Power and lighting (operating companies) — 
Meter testers 

Switchboard and sub-station attendants 
Line foremen 

Sub-foremen on repairs or alterations 
Draftsmen 
Assistant stationary engineers 

No. 3. Telephony (operating companies) — 
Troublemen 
Assistant wire chiefs 
Inspectors 

Engineers' assistants 
Sub-foremen in charge of construction or installation 

of switchboards, cables, etc. 
Assistant managers in traffic department 

No. 4. Railroad work 

(a) Steam railroad switch and signal department — 
Inspectors 



116 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

Sub-foremen in charge of maintenance or new installa- 
tions 
(b) Electric railroads — 

Power plant attendants 

Sub-foremen of electrical maintenance, repairs, and 
alterations 

No. 5. Marine service (merchant and naval) — 
Draftsmen in equipment department 
Assistants in testing department 
Inspectors of electrical eqiupment 
Assistant electricians and wiremen 

Architectueal Positions for which Graduates of the 
chanic Arts School Should Be Fitted 

No. 1. In architects' offices — 
Draftsmen 
Detail designers and estimators 

No. 2. Building operations — 
Inspectors 
Clerks of the works 
Superintendents of construction 

No. 3. In contractors' offices — 
Draftsmen 
Estimators 
Inspectors 
Etc., etc., etc. 

No. 4. In planing mills, furniture, and other woodworking 
factories — 

Draftsmen 
Detail designers 
Inspectors and foremen 

The above list would give in a definite way the type of posi- 
tions that I have in mind. These positions have not been chosen 
at random, but are taken from the list of positions which the 
graduates of our two year course in similar lines at Pratt Insti- 
tute are holding. 

If Pratt Institute can prepare young men in two years to hold 
successfully such positions as I have indicated, certainly the 
Mechanic Arts School of Boston should be able to do the same 
in four years. On the other hand, the Mechanic Arts School 
should maintain the full four year course in order that the 



Appendix K 117 

graduates may have the proper maturity. Pratt Institute 
students are required to be at least seventeen years of age at 
the time of entrance — the two years' difference in age require- 
ments should be made up by the added length of course in the 
Mechanic Arts School. 

It is not to be supposed that the graduates will be fitted to 
hold all of the positions indicated immediately upon gradua- 
tion, nor that they will remain always in any one group of posi- 
tions. Tendency will be for them to enter in the more subor- 
dinate positions, and as they gain experience, be promoted into 
the more responsible positions. 

The following table giving the record of 218 graduates from a 
two year mechanical course at Pratt Institute may be of interest 
in this connection in showing the type of positions held by recent 
graduates who have had five years or less experience in practical 
work, and corresponding positions held by graduates who have 
had from five to ten or twelve years' experience. 

TYPES OF POSITIONS HELD BY GRADUATES OF TWO YEAR 
MECHANICAL COURSE AT PRATT INSTITUTE 

Classes of 1903 Classes of 1902 
and later and earlier 

General managers, assistant managers, superintend- 
ents, or foremen in charge of important depart- 
ments of manufacturing plants 11 30 

Proprietors of small manufacturing plants 3 1 

Chief engineers 3 6 

Chief inspectors or assistant chiefs 2 

Chief draftsmen or assistant chiefs 14 15 

Designers 17 9 

Inspectors 9 3 

Draftsmen 27 7 

Machinists and apprentices 15 1 

Testing positions 11 

Teachers 2 3 

Students in other schools 12 

Outside of manufacturing and engineering work 9 8 

133 85 

Grand total 218 

Of those who completed their course five or more years ago, 
63 per cent now hold responsible positions, and 10 per cent 
have left engineering work. 



118 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

APPENDIX L 

QUESTIONS SUMITTED TO THE HEADMASTER OF 

THE MECHANIC ARTS HIGH SCHOOL AND 

ANSWERED BY HIM IN APPENDIX E 



Kind of Boy with which the Mechanic Arts High School 

Deals 

1. Have you for the past few years accepted all the boys who 

apply as graduates from the Boston Grammar School? 

2. If you have not accepted all of them, what is the reason? 

a. Do you lack accommodations for them? 

b. Are some of them unsuited for the work? 

c. Other reasons. 

3. If you did not accept all of them, on what basis did you select 

your pupils? 

a. Did you reject some because you consider them physically 

unable to do the work? 

b. If so, on what specific test or tests did you base your 

opinion? 

c. Did you reject some because you considered them 

mentally unable to do the work? 

d. On what specific facts did you base your opinion, among 

which are: 

(1) Grammar School record in Arithmetic, English, 
Grammar, Nature Study, Geography, and Manual 
Training. 

(2) Apparent general intelligence, and if so, what are 
the tests for this? 

e. Did you reject some because of apparent financial in- 

ability to complete the course? 

f. If so, what information did you secure as a basis of your 

judgment and how did you secure it? 

(1) Did you find occupation of parent? 

(2) Did you get the wage of parent? 

(3) Did you find the home conditions, which might 
include number in family, income, both parents 
alive, son of widow, step-child? 

(4) Did you prefer the boy who was neat, well-dressed, 
polite, and gentlemanly in manner? 

g. Did you take into consideration the deportment or con- 

duct record of the applicant in the Grammar School? 



Appendix L 119 

h. Do you prefer a boy who comes from a mechanical or 

from a scholastic environment? 
i. Do you prefer a boy who has been in the habit of doing 

concrete things or the boy who has been in the 

habit of dealing largely with abstract things? 
j. Do you prefer the boy who has shown a tendency toward 

practical work or academic work? What is the test 

or tests you use for this purpose? 
k. To what extent has the wish of the applicant to follow a 

given occupation determined the selection? 
1. If selection has been based upon applicant's prospective 

occupation, which occupations have been given the 

preference? 

4. To what extent has the selection been based upon interviews 

with parents? 

5. What use is made of records of Grammar School in selecting 

pupils? 

a. Why was this method of selection used? 

b. Why not draw names of applicants from a hat or accept 

them in the order of their registration until capacity 
of school has been reached? 

c. To what subjects in the Grammar School records would 

you attach importance in choosing a pupil? 

d. Is this importance attached because it is felt that special 

aptitude in these subjects is desirable for success in 
the M. A. H. S.? 

6. Define the kind of a boy whom you regard as best fitted for 

the M. A. H. S. in terms of the following: 

a. Kind of ability. 

b. Aim or purpose in attending High School. 

c. Interest. 

7. From your experience and observation do you believe that on 

the whole, under the system of free choice afforded in 
Boston, a different type of boy attends your school from 
the one who attends such a general high school as the 
English High? 

8. If so, what in general are the characteristics of the two types 

of boys and what is the difference between them? 

9. What type or kind of boy does such a technical school as the 

M. I. T. want, as shown by their entrance examinations? 

a. Is it the boy who has large capacity to deal with ab- 

stractions on paper? 

b. Is it the boy with the large capacity in the abstractions, 

of mathematics and science? 



120 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

c. Is it the boy who likes to work with his hands? 

d. Is it the boy having skill in mechanical processes? 

e. Is it the boy who has had considerable practical exper- 

ience in one way or another with industry? 

f. Is it the boy who likes to work with books? 

10. Do you believe that under the method used in Boston, the 

boy best calculated to meet the demands of such schools 
as the M. I. T. attends the M. A. H. S. rather than some 
other Boston high school? 

11. If so, how do you account for the fact that the authorities 

of the M. I. T. and of Tufts Engineering School report 
that the records of the pupils of such manual training 
and technical high schools as the M. A. H. S., and the 
Rindge Manual Training School, are on the average 
much inferior to those of the pupils who come from regu- 
lar high schools in Boston and elsewhere? 

12. Do you believe that the course of study of the M. A. H. S. 

should continue to serve as a preparation for the tech- 
nical college so that at the end of the four years' course 
the pupil could meet its entrance examination? If so, 
why? 

13. If changes were made in the work of the school so that it 

could no longer serve as a preparatory school for college, 
what would be the effect upon the attendance of the 
school? What per cent of the kind of pupils now at- 
tending would, in your opinion, "cease to apply for ad- 
mission to the first year's work? 

14. Are you of the opinion that the typical boy now attending 

the school wants the same kind of a general education as 
that given in other Boston high schools with some man- 
ual training in addition? 

15. If the school should set up as its aim that of being a finish- 

ing school, fitting boys "to become industry wise" in 
order "that they may enter advantageously as non- 
commissioned officers into industry on its business and 
directive side," do you believe: 

a. That there would be a field for its service sufficient to 

justify the work of the school? Why? 

b. That there would be an attendance sufficient to justify 

the existence of the school? Why? 

c. That the school would attract pupils of any kind who 

do not at the present time attend it? Why? 

16. Would you favor the establishment of a part-time or co- 

operative scheme for the after-training by the school 
of boys who had gone to work? 



Appendix L 121 

17. Has any effort as yet been made by the school to do this? 

18. What kind of a part-time scheme would you favor, if any? 

a. Would you favor taking boys who had gone to work 

immediately after graduating from the grammar 
school? 

b. Would you favor placing boys after one year in the M. 

A. H. S. who leave to go to work, and bringing them 
back for after-training for a part of the time by 
the school? 

c. Would you favor doing this with boys after two years 

in the school? 

d. Would you favor doing this with boys after three years 

in the school? 

e. Would you favor opening the shops of the school during 

the summer for the benefit of boys who could be 
spared during the summer under a part time scheme? 

f . Would you favor opening the shops on Saturday to part- 

time pupils who could be secured by a co-operative 
arrangement? 

g. Would you favor any or all of the following allotments 

of the boys' time to the school: 

(1) Alternate weeks 

(2) Alternate days 

(3) One day per week 

(4) One-half day per week 

(5) One-half day per day 

19. What are the difficulties or limitations to be met in carrying 

on such part-time or co-operative training? 

20. To what extent do you believe a system of vocational direc- 

tion and placing by the school of pupils before and after 
graduation in places of the kind for which the school was 
preparing them would attract and hold the boys who 
were seeking such preparation for such places? 

II 

Vocational Dikection and Placement 

1. Do you regard the M. A. H. S. as a general or a vocational 

school? 

2. If it is a general high school, how does its work differ from 

that of the usual general high school? 

a. In aim 

b. In kind of boy dealt with 



122 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

o. In kind of training given 

3. If it is a vocational school, for what vocations or trades or 

occupations does it fit? 

4. To what extent do the vocations for which the school fits 

determine the choice of the school by the boy? 

a. Roughly, what per cent of the pupils enter the voca- 

tions for which the school fits? 

(1) Of those who enter 

(2) Of those who graduate 

b. Roughly, what per cent of the boys who enter the 

school want a general education with some manual 
training in addition? 

c. Roughly what per cent of the boys want the kind of a 

general education which will enable them to attend 
college at its close, if they so desire at that time? 

d. Roughly, what per cent of the boys enter the school with 

the fixed intention of attending college? 

e. Roughly, how many boys try the college entrance board's 

examinations? 

f. Roughly, what per cent of these fail to pass these ex- 

aminations? 

g. What per cent of the pupils, in your opinion, enter the 

school with any definite idea or choice of what 

calling they expect to follow? 

h. What per cent of the pupils, in your opinion, choose 
the school because it fits for the callings which they 
want to follow? 

5. How is the choice of the school made by the pupil? 

a. Is it usually made without any consultation with school 

authorities? 

b. Is it usually made with the aid of the grammar school 

master or teacher? 

(1) What explanation or description of the work of 
the M. A. H. S., if any, is supplied to the grammar 

school principal for this purpose? 

If any printed or typewritten mat- 
ter is supplied, kindly file a copy of it. 

(2) Is there any individual conference between the 
grammar school authorities and: 

(a.) The boy 

(b.) The parent 

(3) What facts do the grammar school authorities take 
into consideration before advising the boy to at- 
tend the M. A. H. S.? 



Appendix L 123 

Is it usually made with the aid of the principal and 
teachers of the M. A. H. S.? 

(1) If not, when is it so made? 

(2) When so made, is there conference with the 
parent? 

(3) What facts do you take into consideration before 
advising the boy to attend the M. A. H. S.? 

(4) In past years, when it was necessary to select 
from an excessive number of applications, was the 
selection based upon the vocational aim of the 
pupil or upon his grammar school record? 



6. Are any members of the M. A. H. S. specially responsible for 

vocational direction and placing of the boys from the 
school? 

7. Is this person, or persons, relieved from regular school duties 

to any extent in order that they may do this work? 



8. How much time are they able to give to it? 

9. What are the duties of these vocational assistants or directors? 

a. Do they deal with the boy while he is making his choice 

of a high school? 

b. Is it customary for boys who are about to withdraw 

from the school to give notice some time in advance 
of the fact that they expect to quit? 

c. Is conference held with these boys as to the cause of 

their withdrawal from the school and as to the kind 
of work which they should follow after leaving 
school? 

d. Is any effort made to place these boys who are about to 

quit school for work to which they are suited? 

e. Is their conference, at the close of each school year, 

with the boys who have announced their intention of 
not returning for the following year, with a view to 
aiding them to make the right choice of work? 

f. Is conference held with the members of the outgoing 

class before graduation with regard to: 

(1) The choice of a college they should make 

(2) The choice of an occupation which they should 
enter 

g. To what extent does the school make an effort to place 

boys for work during the summer? 
(1) Does it carry a register of boys seeking work? 



124 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

(2) Does it carry a register of business men desiring 
boys? 

(3) Does it make any active effort to find positions 
for boys, in addition to this ? 

h. To what extent does the school place boys in positions 
after graduation? 

(1) Do pupils, upon graduation, register for positions? 

(2) Is a register carried of business men desiring 
graduates of the school? 

(3) Does the school make an effort to secure the co- 
operation of business men and manufacturers in 
placing students in positions? 

10. Do you believe that the school ought to deal more extensively 

with this matter of directing and placing pupils? 

11. If so, what would you recommend in addition to what is 

now being done? 

12. In order to carry out the suggestion which you have made, 

do you believe it will be necessary for the school to 
employ in its faculty one teacher who gave a large part 
or all of his time to this task? 

13. Are the different years of the course of the school arranged 

with the idea that each is a preparation for the year 
which follows, or are they arranged with the idea that 
the pupil, upon completing each, could, if he left school, 
carry out something that would prove of definite value 
to him in the vocation for which he seeks preparation or 
upon which he is likely to enter? 

14. Do you believe that, by the same course of study, a pupil 

can be equally well fitted either to meet the requirements 
of the technical college or to go out into such vocations 
as are usually followed by the boys who leave the M. A. 
H. S.? 

Ill 
Study and Promotion 

1. On what basis do you promote the boy? 

a. Do you give equal weight to all examination marks in 

all subjects? To classroom marks in all 

subjects? 

b. If not, do you rate marks in shop work as being equal 

to marks in non-shop work? 

c. Do you promote on examination marks alone? 

d. Do you promote on averages of classroom marks alone? 



Appendix L 125 

e. Do you promote on both? 

f. If so, what relative weight do you give to class marks 

and examination marks? 

2. Assuming that the term mark is made up on basis of exam- 

ination marks and class marks in each subject, what 
relative weights are given to examination mark and 
class mark for each subject and as between subjects? 

When an instructor in your school makes up the term mark 
on his subject, is there any uniform rule as to the relative 
value of the examination mark and the classroom aver- 
age which is followed throughout the school? 
If so, what is it? 

If the school promotes on the average of term marks ob- 
tained in various subjects, how is the promotion mark 
obtained? 

a. Do you give equal weight to laboratory, shop, and 

academic subjects? 

b. If not, what values do you give and what are your 

reasons? 

3. When examinations are given in laboratory and shop sub- 

jects, do they include tests of manipulative or ability? 

4. What per cent of the pupils dropping out of your school do 

so because they have failed or about to fail to secure a 
passing mark? 

5. What is the subject or subjects in which they usually fail? 

1st year 3d year 

2d year 4th year 

College entrance examination 

6. What are the causes of the failures? 

a. Was it due to unsatisfactory teaching? 

b. Was it due to unsatisfactory teaching conditions? 

c. Was it due to inability to do the work? 

d. Was it due to lack of application? 

e. Was it due to insufficient time allotment? 

f. Other causes? 

7. Do your instructors complain about unsatisfactory home 

study? 

8. Are these complaints more marked in the first, second, third, 

or fourth year classes? (Please mark as 1, 2, 3, 4, 

in designating degree, the years in which complaints were 
more marked.) 

9. In your fourth year do you get more home study and better 

marks out of the college or non-college group? 



126 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

10. Are your standards the same for both? 

11. Do you promote by subject or by years? 

12. Are pupils required to repeat the year's work? 

a. If they fail in one subject? 

b. If they fail in two subjects? 

c. If they fail in three subjects? 

d. Are pupils required to repeat unsatisfactory shop work? 

13. How are delinquencies in the work of the school removed? 

a. Through repetition of work? 

b. Through additional coaching by teachers? 

c. Through summer study? If so where? 

d. Through examinations 

14. What procedure is followed when pupils fail? 

a. Are parents notified? 

b. Is there conference with the pupil? With the 

parent? 

c. When are pupils requested to withdraw upon failure? 

IV 

Character of Training 

1. How does the amount of time given in classes other than shop 

work and drawing compare with that given by such a 
general high school as the English High in: 

1st year. 3d year 

2d year 4th year 

2. In order to graduate from the M. A. H. S. is it necessary for 

a pupil to carry a foreign language successfully? 

In what years? 

3. If not, what other subject or subjects are accepted as a sub- 

stitute or equivalent? 

4. In order to graduate, is it necessary for a pupil to carry shop 

work successfully? 

5. If not, what other subject or subjects are accepted as a sub- 

stitute or equivalent? 

6. How many different courses such as general course, college 

preparatory course, technical institute course, industrial 
course, etc., are offered by the school? 

7. What is the purpose or end of each of these courses described 

in terms of: 
a. What kind of boy the course is for? 






Appendix L 127 

b. What kind of occupation or calling in general he ex- 

pects to follow. 

c. What the course is expected to do for him 

d. How it does it? 

8. What is the difference between these courses? 

a. In aim 

b. In method 

c. In content 

d. In type of pupil . ..... 

e. In amount of time devoted to subjects taught - 

9. How are the pupils assigned to these different courses? 

a. Is assignment based on choice of pupil? 

b. Is this the result of consultation with: 

(1) Pupil 

(2) Parent or guardian 

c. Is assignment made by school on basis of pupil's choice 

of an occupation or calling? 

d. Is it made on basis of pupil's comparative interest in 

book work or shop work? 

e. Is it made on basis of the pupil's comparative aptitude in 

dealing with book work and such shop work? 

f. Is it made on basis of any test of any kind such as a 

temporary assignment to the work of a course? 

10. If it becomes clear that, for any reason, a pupil is not fitted 

for the course which he is taking, is there any arrange- 
ment or practice whereby: 

a. He is shifted or assigned to another course 

b. To another high school 

11. Is this shifting or new assignment the result of: 

a. Conference with pupil 

b. Conference with parent 

c. Conference with headmaster or other official of another 

school 

12. To what extent is there at the present time conference or 

consultation between the headmasters of the Boston 
high schools, the assistant superintendents, or both, 
with regard to: 

a. Entrance requirements of different high schools 

b. Distribution of pupils among these high schools based 

on such considerations as: 

(1) Interest of pupil 

(2) Probable future occupation or calling 



128 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

(3) Special aptitude or ability of pupil 

c. Interchange of pupils between schools 

d. Field of service to be met by each high school, general 

or special 

e. Differences in aim and kind of training? 

13. While the direct aim of the M. A. H. S. is not to fit for 

college, is the pupil who has taken the work of the school 

able to meet college entrance requirements? 

About what per cent are able to do this? 

14. Is the theory of the school in general that, along with shop 

work and drawing, a general course of training is being 
given which will enable the pupil upon graduation 
either to go to college or start advantageously in life, 
particularly on the business and directive side of industry? 

15. Which of the following is the belief or theory of the schoob 

so far as the aim of the pupil is concerned : 

a. That he desires a general education with some manual 

training in addition? 

b. That he desires to be fitted for a technical or other 

college? 

c. That he desires a general education with the possibility 

of electing a college course at its close? 

d. That he desires to be fitted for entrance as a wage earner 

in such trades or occupations as machinist, car- 
penter, electrician, patternmaker, etc.? 

e. That he desires to be fitted for entrance into industry 

as a " non-commissioned officer on its business or 
directive side"? 

16. What are the differences in the kind of training other than 

shop work and drawing, between the M. A. H. S. and 
other general high schools such as the English High? 

a. Do you use the same kind of text-books? 

b. If not, what in general is the difference between them? 

c. Please give one or two illustrations of this difference. 

e. If not, what in general is the difference in method? 

f. Please give one or two illustrations of this difference. 

17. Is it possible for a boy to shift at the close of a given year 

from the M. A. H. S. to another Boston high school, or 
vice versa, without being "set back" in or greatly handi- 
caped in his academic work: 
1st year 2d year 3d year 



Appendix L 129 

18. What is the number and the per cent of your 4th year 

class for the past two years who elected not to take : 

a. Shop work 

b. Shop work and drawing 

19. In view of the crowded condition of your school and the 

further fact that such pupils were confining themselves 
practically entirely to academic work, would it be advis- 
able to transfer them to other Boston high schools for 
the last year's work? Why? 

20. Assuming that the aim of the school is or may become that 

of a finishing school fitting boys "to be industry wise, 
so that they may enter advantageously as non-commis- 
sioned officers of industry on its business and directive 
side," is it your opinion that the training now given by 
the school is best calculated on the whole to accomplish 
this stated aim? 

21. What is the reason for your answer? 

22. If not, what changes in the course of study and the method 

of teaching would you make, in order to accomplish it 
better? 

23. In order to accomplish these changes, what differences or 

alterations would you make in the administrative side of 
the work? 

a. Would it be necessary to reduce the number in the in- 

coming first year or Freshman group? 

b. Would it be necessary to reduce the size of the classes 

for instruction purposes: 

(1) In the shop? 

(2) In the classroom? 

c. Would it be necessary to purchase additional equipment? 

d. Assuming that such changes as you suggest would be 

introduced only with incoming classes, what would 
be your estimate of the additional cost by years of 
such equipment? 

(1) 1912-13 1915-16 

(2) 1913-14 1916-17 

e. Would a larger teaching force be required: 

(1) If size of classes were reduced and registration be 
undiminished? 

(2) If size of classes and total registration were re- 
duced? 

f. Would changes in your teaching force be necessary? 

If so, what? 



130 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

g. Would you have to change the character of your teach- 
ing? If so, 

how? 

h. Would the per capita cost of operating the school be 
increased? 

(1) Why? 

(2) To what figure (estimated)? 

24. Would you favor grouping the pupils for instruction into 

two groups, one fitting for college and one fitting for 
work as non-commissioned officers of industry, or would 
you favor continuing the present arrangement? 

25. If you favored grouping as suggested in question No. 24, 

would you have the same or a different course of study 
for each group? 

26. If different courses of study, please state the important 

differences between them? 

27. Would you use the same or different methods of instruc- 

tion? 

28. If different methods of instruction, what would be the 

chief difference in the methods used in training the college 
and the non-college group? 

V 

Character of the Shop Work 

1. How much time is given to shop work? 

1st year 3d year 

2nd year ._ 4th year 

2. What are the minimum requirements of the school on se- 

lecting instructors for shop work as to 

a. Academic training 

b. Technical knowledge 

c. Trade experience 

3. If there be shop assistants to the instructors what are the 

requirements for them as to 

a. Academic training 

b. Technical knowledge 

c. Trade experience 

4. To what extent do your shop instructors keep up with present 

methods? 

5. How many have more than this minimum requirement and 

how much more? 
a. Shop instructors 



Appendix L 131 

b. Shop assistants 

6. What is the largest number of pupils in a shop class? 

1st year 3d year 

2d year 4th year. 

7. What is the smallest number of pupils in a shop class: 

1st year 3d year 

2d year 4th year 

8. What is the maximum number of pupils per shop instructor 

that inj your opinion a school should have? 

9. Are pupils taught their shop work by the group or by the 

individual method? 

10. Are new exercises preceded by lecture and demonstration 

or are they given to pupils individually with individual 
instruction? Do all pupils in a given class work on the 
same exercise at the same time? 
Which of these two do you regard as being most effective? 

11. Is an effort made to do this or to avoid it? 

If you use the group method of teaching, please give the 
reason: 

a. Because the method is best as a means of teaching 

b. Because the class is too large to be handled otherwise 

c. Because the equipment is best adapted to the group 
method of teaching 

d. Because otherwise too much material would be spoiled 

e. Because best results are obtained after careful prelim- 

inary direction to the group 

f. Because immature boys learn best by imitation 

12. What is done with the output of the shops of the school? 
a Who pays for the material used? 

b. Does the pupil take home what he makes? 

c. Does the shop make things for the school? To what 

extent? 

d. To what extent has the school made its own additional 

equipment from time to time or its own construction 
or alteration in plant if any? 

e. Has any of the output of the shops been sold? 

13. What are the objections as you see them to the individual 

method of shop instruction in your school? 

14. If the boy is to be made acquainted as much as possible 

with industry so that along with other things he is to go 
out " industry- wise, having a consumer's or director's 



132 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

knowledge of tools, machinery, materials, processes, 
workmanship, output, shop problems and difficulties, and 
industrial economics/' what changes if any, would you 
make in the present shop work in order better to ac- 
complish this end? 

a. Would you increase the amount of time given to the 

shop work? If so, how much? 

b. Would you reduce the number of pupils per shop in- 

structor? 

c. Would you operate the shop on an exercise or a pro- 

ductive basis? 

d. Would you have pupils make things to take home or 

would you have them make things to be utilized in 
the M. A. H. S. or other high schools or sold on the 
market? 

e. Would you have pupils draw what they make and make 

what they draw? 

f . Would you have them calculate the amount of dimension 

stock required on their work, its cost, the amount 
and value of their own time, and the value of the 
finished article? 

g. Would you lay the emphasis on the job and the output 

or on the exercise and process which the pupil per- 
forms in making an article? 

15. To what extent has the school brought its pupils through 

visitation of outside shops and the talks of successful 
manufacturers, foremen, and workmen into contact with 
the industrial activities of Boston? 

16. Do you believe this should be done? 
If so how would you accomplish it? 

17. How, if at all, is the drawing work connected with the shop 

work? 

a. Are drawings made of the objects or projects made in 

the shop by the boys who make them? 

b. Are drawings made for other boys to use in the shop? 

c. To what extent do boys work from blue prints of draw- 

ings made by others? 

(1) First year 

(2) Second year 

(3) Third year 

(4) Fourth year 

d. Are all the drawings made in the drawing room or are 

some of them made on the shop floor as shop 
sketches? 



Appendix L 133 

e. If drawings are made for the shops, who takes the 

responsibility for the checking of these drawings? 

(1) The shop instructor 

(2) The drawing room instructor 

f. Who decides on what kind of drawings and what kind of 

projects shall be made in the different shops? 

(1) The individual teachers 

(2) The principal of the school 

(3) The head of the department 

g. Are drawings made in order to create exercises in the 

shop or are exercises in the shop given to provide 
work in drawing? 

h. What are the difficulties to be met in having the draw- 
ing serve the shop work and the shop work serve the 
drawing? 

i. Is it feasible to closely connect the work of the shop and 
the drawing rooms and can one be made to serve the 
other better? 

j. What suggestions have you to make in doing this? 

18. What is the aim of your shop work? 

a. Is the aim fine technique and workmanship? 

b. Is it the plan to have a boy make a few things and make 

them very well or to make a large number of things 
in such a way as to give the boy a larger experience 
and insight into shop method and processes. 

c. Can both of these things be done in the time at your 

disposal? 

d. If time is too short, where, in your opinion, should the 

emphasis be laid between these two aims? 

19. How many different pupils do your head shop instructors 

deal with in a week's time? 

a. The largest number 

b. The smallest number 

20. Will you kindly furnish a list, which can easily be secured 

from the head shop instructors, of the things which the 
boys have made this school year in the first year, second 
year, third year, and fourth year? 

21. At the same time will you kindly find out from these in- 

structors the total number of each thing made? 

22. What is the purpose of the shop work in the school? 

a. To furnish manual training as a part of a general educa- 

tion. 

b. To attract and hold boys who would otherwise not take 

a secondary school course. 



134 A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School 

c. To give needed and helpful preparation for technical 
college training to follow. 

e. To develop the mind through the training of the hand. 

f. To help boys carry on their book work better- 

VI 

The Drawing 

1. What is the length of time devoted to free-hand drawing? 

a. First year c. Third year 

b. Second year d. Fourth year 

2. What is the length of time devoted to machine drawing? 

a. First year c. Third year 

b. Second year d. Fourth year 

3. What is the length of time given to architectural drawing? 

a* First year c. Third year 

b. Second year d. Fourth year 

4. What is the smallest amount of industrial experience that 

is considered necessary for the teacher of each of these 
lines? 

5. In general, how many of these instructors in drawing have 

had more than this minimum requirement in practical 
experience? 

6. How long have these instructors been out of the trade? 

7. What method is pursued to have them keep in touch with 

commercial practices? 

8. Is the same preliminary course given for each line of work, 

free-hand, machine, and architectural drafting? 

9. Is the beginning work in drawing the same for all boys? 

10. At what point in the course do boys begin to specialize in 

the different kinds of drawing offered by the school? 

11. Are these different kinds of drawing taught in different 

classes to different boys or are they taught in the same 
class to the same boys? 

12. Kindly send instruction sheets, exercise book, or text, to- 

gether with the sheets of drawings, tracings, and blue 
prints made by the pupils during the last school year, 
a. In the first year, second year, third year, and fourth 
year of the work. 

13. Kindly indicate on each sheet the probable number of 

copies made by the pupil of each kind. 



VITA 

Charles A. Prosser, born, New Albany, Ind., September 20, 1871. 

A.B., DePauw University, 1897; A.M., 1906. B.L., University of Louis- 
ville, 1898. A.M., Hanover College, Hanover, Ind., (honorary) 1903. Grad- 
uate student, Columbia University, 1909-10 and 1910-11. Graduate stu- 
dent, New York School of Philanthropy, 1909-10. 

Superintendent, Mailing Dept., Post Office, New Albany, Ind., 1908-09. 

Instructor in Science, New Albany, Ind., 1899-1908. 

Superintendent of Schools, New Albany, Ind., 1900-1908. 

Judge, Juvenile Court, New Albany, Ind., 1904-08. 

Superintendent of Schools, Children's Aid Society, New York, 1909-10. 

Deputy Commissioner for Vocational Education for Massachusetts, 1910- 
12. 

Secretary, National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education, 
1912-15. 

Special Investigator, Mechanic Arts High School, Boston, 1913-14. 

Member of National Commission on Federal Aid to Vocational Education, 
1914. 

Lecturer, Columbia University, 1914-15. 

Member of Special Committee on Vocational Survey for Richmond, 1914, 

Lecturer, Harvard Summer School, 1914. 

Director, Minneapolis Educational Survey, 1915. 

Director, Dunwoody Industrial Institute, Minneapolis, 1915— ■ 

Special Lecturer, University of Minnesota, 1915 — 

Member, National Censorship Board of Moving Pictures, New York 
Cty, 1909-10. Member, National Censorship Board for Moving Pictures,. 
1914. Member, National Committee on Federal Constitution. Member, 
Special Committee on Vocational Education, National Education Associa- 
tion, 1913-15. Member, Board of Trustees, Italian American Society, 
1910-11. Member, Advisory Board, Vocation Bureau, Boston. 

Contributing editor to the following publications: Bulletins of U. S. Bureau 
of Education; Bulletins of U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics; Manual Arts and 
Vocational Education Magazine; Educational Administration and Supervi- 
sion. 

General editor, American Book Company, Vocational Education series, 
1915. 

Writings 

Report on Revision of Course of Studies for Indiana Schools. 

Report on Teachers' Pensions, Indiana Schools. 

The New Harmony Movement, in collaboration with Geo. B. Lock wood. 

The Teacher and Old Age, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1913. 

Legislation on Vocational Education, in collaboration with Wesley A. 



O'Leary, to be published by U. S. Bureau of Education. 

Study of the Dress and Waist Industry for the Purpose of Industrial Edu- 
cation, in collaboration with Cleo Murtland, Bulletin of U. S. Bureau of 
Labor Statistics, 1915. 

Short Unit Courses for Wage Earners, in collaboration with Wesley A. 
O'Leary, Bulletin of U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, No. 159, 1915. 

Assisted in the writing of legislation upon vocational education for Massa- 
chusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Vir- 
ginia, Missouri. 

The Training of the Factory Worker, 1912. 

Practical Arts and Vocational Guidance. 

The Place of Art in Industrial Education. 

Vocational Education Legislation, 1910-11 and 1912-13. 

Legislation upon Industrial Education in the United States, in collabora- 
tion with Dr. Edw. C. Elliott, University of Wisconsin, [Bulletin No. 12 of 
the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education, 1910. 

Why Federal Aid to Industrial Education. 

Report of National Commission on Federal Aid to Vocational Education, 
Vol. I containing body of report written by C. A. Prosser, as a member of the 
Commission. 

Report on Mechanic Arts High School, Boston, 1913-14. 

The Place of Art in Industry. 

The Evolution of the Training of the Worker in Industry, 1915. 



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